Hospitals strike: Senior doctors unhappy with replacements

Medical Teachers Association and academic councils back young doctors.


Sher Khan April 06, 2011

LAHORE:


Senior doctors and professors came out in support for the Young Doctors Association (YDA) on Tuesday and raised doubts about the quality of doctors hired by the Punjab government to replace the young doctors on strike.


“We can no longer stand back and watch ... the doctors have justified demands and since the government has decided to go with replacement doctors, we have had to take a stand,” said Amjad Ali, general secretary of the Medical Teachers’ Association (MTA).

“Hospitals will not be able to function; this is not like replacing labourers,” Ali said at a joint press conference with YDA Punjab president Dr Hamid Butt. He added that the MTA would provide active support and guidance to YDA Punjab.

Ali said that the young doctors were the backbone of hospitals and teachers would not be able to sustain their current workload. He said that academic councils of teaching hospitals and the MTA would meet to discuss further action.

Asked if the senior doctors would join the strike, he said that they had not taken that decision yet, but admitted it posed a moral dilemma as the professors did not want to leave patients in critical condition or on ventilators.

He said that on Monday, Senior Adviser to the Chief Minister Sirdar Zulfiqar Khosa had met with an MTA delegation and told them that the YDA Punjab was rigid and not open to negotiation to end the strike. Ali said that this was simply untrue and cited the late night opening of the emergency rooms at the cardiology institutes in the province. Butt said that YDA members had gone back to work at the cardiology institutes on the request of senior doctors on humanitarian grounds. He said that the Health Department was misleading the public by saying that it could find adequate replacements and called for the sacking of Health Secretary Fawad Hasan Fawad

“These doctors are like PCO judges,” he said, referring to the replacement doctors. “The government is afraid because deep down they know they cannot run things without us.”

At Ganga Ram Hospital, the academic council passed a resolution on Monday threatening to join the strike from Tuesday, but decided to delay the resolution after discussions with the MTA.

Professor Dr Farogh Zahra, who is part of the Ganga Ram academic council, said that the replacement doctors were not as good as the YDA doctors. “They are providing us with doctors who are not trained or lack merit,” said Dr Zahra. “The situation is the same in our emergency wards.”

Ganga Ram Hospital administrator Dr Zeeshan Malik said that senior doctors had been “heroes” in the current circumstances, but the administration was prepared for whatever action they take.

He said that most of the replacement doctors had little experience at major hospitals. “The government has made an arrangement but they are not trained,” said Malik. “Patients aren’t satisfied and the patient turnover has decreased to about 5 percent of what it was.”

Federal hospital

At Shaikh Zayed Hospital, which is a federal government hospital, some 40 doctors dressed in white coats chanted slogans demanding better pay. “This is in support for their cause because doctors at federal and provincial hospitals face the same problem of low pay,” said YDA Shaikh Zayed Hospital head Shahid Malik.The doctors said that they were yet to decide whether the Shaikh Zayed chapter of the YDA would join the strike. They said more and more patients had been pouring into the hospital because of the strike at Punjab government hospitals. “The increased load does not bode well for patients and the poor who will have to pay up to three times more,” Malik said.

Opp parties slam govt

Meanwhile, opposition parties criticised the Punjab government’s handling of the doctors’ strike. PML-Quaid leader Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi blamed Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s “poor governance”. “The CM should learn to use doctors instead of arresting them,” he said.

There were also unconfirmed reports of a meeting between YDA and Tehreek-i-Insaf officials.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6th, 2011.

COMMENTS (6)

gangly khan | 12 years ago | Reply Neither government nor the doctors have any sympathies with the poor. They are fighting a battle for getting more and more. If the people die due to non availability of medical care what does this make difference for doctors or government? Let the poor die due to lack of medical treatment. Let the poor and innocent die with drone and suicide attacks. This will not impact any one from the ruling class.
dr shinwari | 12 years ago | Reply Its great shame for the punjab govt who decieve their innocent people by claiming high. So called new doctors appointed, rightly said to be PCO doctors, are those who are not even registered with PMDC and so are not allowed to practice, they hire people who are not even doctors like Pharma D Students, botony and zoology students. The new doctors comming for housejob across the province have also rejected their interviews. At the moment, health system has collapsed in punjab but govt is yet claiming for false victories against doctors who surely have no alternative in their field.
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