Doctors, K-P govt on warpath
As medical practitioners protests against a new piece of legislation
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government and the medical fraternity appear to be on warpath after Friday’s violent incident outside Peshawar’s premier health facility – the Lady Reading Hospital. The doctors were protesting against a new piece of legislation which, they apprehend, will give the authorities the power to dismiss medical practitioners with the stroke of a pen. In a violent response, police roughed up and rounded up the protesting doctors and paramedics. In a sign of deepening trouble, the medical community announced it will extend its strike across the province’s state-run hospitals while authorities in Peshawar shifted 15 doctors and paramedics it had arrested on Friday to the Mardan Central Jail for one month.
An order issued by Peshawar’s deputy commissioner said the detainees had been sent to the jail under 3-MPO for making a violent entry to the LRH, blocking a major road, paralysing activities in the provincial capital, and badly damaging property.
The doctors and paramedics announced that the strike would continue until the detainees were freed and their demands were met. Their representative body, named the Grand Health Alliance, demands that the government reverse the enactment of the Regional and District Health Authorities Bill (RDHA), and remove health minister Hisham Inamullah Khan. The alliance claims that the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act enforced across the province in 2015 had caused ‘great harm’ to the teaching hospitals, while this new bill – RDHA – would do the same to the district health facilities. The Pakistan Medical Association has also thrown its weight behind the protesters and asked the government not to enforce the new legislation without consulting stakeholders, especially doctors. We hope the government resolves the matter by speaking to the protesters instead of trying to impose its will by force.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2019.
An order issued by Peshawar’s deputy commissioner said the detainees had been sent to the jail under 3-MPO for making a violent entry to the LRH, blocking a major road, paralysing activities in the provincial capital, and badly damaging property.
The doctors and paramedics announced that the strike would continue until the detainees were freed and their demands were met. Their representative body, named the Grand Health Alliance, demands that the government reverse the enactment of the Regional and District Health Authorities Bill (RDHA), and remove health minister Hisham Inamullah Khan. The alliance claims that the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act enforced across the province in 2015 had caused ‘great harm’ to the teaching hospitals, while this new bill – RDHA – would do the same to the district health facilities. The Pakistan Medical Association has also thrown its weight behind the protesters and asked the government not to enforce the new legislation without consulting stakeholders, especially doctors. We hope the government resolves the matter by speaking to the protesters instead of trying to impose its will by force.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2019.