Young doctors’ strike

Authorities know that having medical services available through doctors, is a vital part of the wellbeing of a society

Lahore’s young doctors are determined in their resolve to receive higher salaries along with other wishes as demonstrated in the Young Doctors’ Association’s (YDA) ongoing protest in the city. Gratefully, the protest is not being executed in other areas of the province, despite contrary claims by the YDA of a province-wide protest. This is a case of white-collared employees, protesting — not unusually — even though, given their choice of profession, they are situated much better than many people in Pakistan in terms of career prospects. On the one hand, their strike is self-conceited, evidenced by the death of a 50-year-old woman who allegedly died due to the protesting doctors denying her emergency care notwithstanding she may have died prior to her hospital arrival or had too complicated a case to be rescued. On the other hand, considering that the news of doctors’ strikes, particularly the YDA, appears several times a year, it is high time for the relevant government department to consider the doctors’ demands or provide other options.

The white-collared protesting employees are supported in their demands so long as equal terms are presented, including a reasonable salary. The governing authority must realise that having medical services available, through doctors, is a vital part of the wellbeing of a society. Instead, they have supported the arrest of YDA members by the police showcasing their stubbornness.

In due diligence, however, doctors must conversely remember that there is a global Hippocratic oath they take to serve people anywhere. The doctors who are implicated in the death of the 50-year-old woman, Jannatul Firdous, owing to neglect must always remember the oath. Although the arrests of doctors may be justified owing to their destruction and transgression of police/public property, the doctors’ fervour can be detected and the authorities should not ignore them any longer. This has become too frequent a news and the respective government has a duty to consider and honour the demands.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 3^rd, 2017.

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