Doctors’ strike: LHC chief justice wants health secretary sacked

Judge also criticises Punjab government for ‘playing with lives’.

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry has expressed displeasure at the fact that Health Secretary Fawad Hassan Fawad has not been sacked and slammed the Punjab government for its “complete failure” to manage the healthcare crisis in the province.

The chief justice also summoned the Punjab chief secretary for Friday to explain the situation at the hospitals where doctors were on strike and the Young Doctors Association (YDA) president to explain the legal position of the association’s establishment.

Justice Chaudhry issued the orders on a petition filed by journalist Manzoor Qadir which asked the court to direct the government to take action against the striking doctors for violating their professional oath.

The court held that whoever was responsible for causing the closure of hospitals should be punished, as they were “playing with people’s lives”. He observed that the chief minister had suspended commissioner-level officers within 24 hours of the strike called by the Provincial Civil Service, but 36 days after the start of the doctors’ strike, had not taken action against the official responsible (the health secretary).

The chief justice held that the crisis was a “complete failure” of the Punjab government. He was hearing the case before doctors called off their strike later in the day after a meeting with the chief minister. Appearing before the court, the health secretary defended the government’s handling of the crisis.

He submitted that the government had been engaged with the doctors since the start of their protest and had tried its best to minimise the disruption to patient treatment.

Fawad said the government could not raise the salaries of doctors immediately, as they had demanded, but would do so in the next budget. Also, the government would have to consider the demands of paramedics and nurses when raising doctors’ salaries.

He said that there was a meeting going on “right now” at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat with representatives of the protesting doctors and hoped that the strike would end soon.

The petitioner’s counsel submitted that 200 patients had died because they had not been given medical treatment during the strike. He said that the protesting doctors were harassing the doctors who had not joined the strike.

He said the government had given the protesting doctors a free-hand and they were taking the law and lives of the poor into their hands.

The chief justice observed that while government hospitals were closed, the poor could not afford to go to private hospitals and so the government was “playing with their lives”.

He said he would decide later whether or not those responsible should be prosecuted.

An additional advocate general told the court that if the doctors did not return to the hospitals, the government would pay to get patients treated at private hospitals.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2011.