Nurses stage protest outside K-P assembly

Association of health care workers vow not to budge on their demands

PESHAWAR: Demanding a service structure, members of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Nursing Association boycotted duties at their respective health facilities across the province and took to streets in protest. Some gathered outside the provincial assembly to have their voice heard.

Interestingly, few members working at Medical Teaching Institutions (MTI) participated in the protest for fear of losing their jobs. A few nurses from the Khyber Teaching Hospital and the Lady Reading Hospital also attended the protest.

In the provincial capital Peshawar, male and female nurses gathered outside the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) assembly and hold a protest in favour of their demands.

According to the protesting nurses, they have been working for years but the government has yet to define a service structure for them. They were of the view that nursing was one of the most important components in the health services delivery sector and despite that, it was ignored.

“We have been protesting for our rights, just like others did in the past, and this is not a violation, rather the Constitution has empowered us,” the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Nursing Association (K-PNA) president Inayatul Haq stated, adding that they wanted time-scale promotions and health professional allowance.

Haq called on the government to set up a separate directorate for nurses apart from allocating compensatory allowance and to end the differences between MTI and health department employees. “MTI employees receive a handsome amount but the department’s employees are less important,” he told The Express Tribune.

Haq stated that the department expressed the desire to negotiate with members of the association, however, he insisted that their demands were final and that the government must accept all of them.

“We never refused to perform our duties even at the height of terrorist activity with bomb blasts, suicide attacks taking place, at times twice a day, but they [the government] is least bothered with our problems,” complained a female nurse who refused to follow directions issued by the Hayatabad Medical Complex administration and attended the protest.

She stated that the hospital’s administration had made it clear that anyone who violated the management’s orders and participated in the protest would face severe consequences.

“What else can they do? Terminate my services? but I don’t care,” the nurse said defiantly.

She warned that if the government tried to resist, the members of the association would stage a sit-in outside the provincial assembly until their issues were resolved. 

Published in The Express Tribune, April 19^th, 2018.