We gave jobs to doctors, now they refuse to work: PTI K-P minister

GHA strike continues, though some senior doctors attend patients in Peshawar’s three big govt hospitals

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government will not step back from the Regional and District Health Authorities Bill at any cost, said K-P Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai on Tuesday.

“Doctors who were of no worth and were pleading for jobs were now threatening the government’s writ and authority,” he said talking to media.

Yousafzai said the provincial government hired 4,000 doctors in recent years as part of its agenda to bring reforms in the health sector. However, some doctors have formed pressure groups and were refusing to work in hometowns.

While coming harsh on the doctor’s protest the minister said: “we provided jobs to unemployed doctors of the province. Many of these doctors were jobless for a year and some were even working at grocery stores selling flour, rice, lentils, and daily use items in their hometowns. Now that they have jobs, the very same doctors are criticising the provincial government’s reforms process.”

It should be clear that the government would not rollback the reforms and never take back the Regional and District Health Authorities Bill. “The protesting doctors should bear in mind, those who don’t have the stomach to serve their public should resign from the post, as we have decided to carry out departmental actions against those who hamper the services to the masses in the hospitals,” Yousafzai said.

The information minister said that the government had asked the Grand Health Alliance to come to the table to talk, but they went ahead with their motives to disrupt the services to the public.

The doctors were protesting although, the minister said, “We made it clear to them that we have no plan to privatise public hospitals in the province.”

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Yousafzai said the opposition benches and opposition parties were using GHA for political agenda.

“Leader of Opposition Akram Khan Durrani has claimed in the provincial assembly that they are behind the doctor's protest,” he said.

On the other hand, the provincial government has decided to arrest more doctors on the charges of the violation of the Maintenance of Public Order section 3, commonly known as 3MPO.

Police have prepared a list of over 40 doctors who have been leading all the protests in the province.

Fissure in strike

The three big health facilities of the province have recorded few activities. LRH gets over 5,000 patients in OPDs in a day, however, GHA had barred doctors from attending patients.

For the past six days, no OPD was functional. But on Tuesday the MDA along with few doctors saw around 500 patients. He said that owing to strike, they could not conduct surgeries in the hospital where over 3,000 operations have become overdue in the past seven days.

In the Hayatabad Medical Complex where normally, 4,500 people come to various OPDs in a day, at least 400 patients were seen by doctors defecting from the strike. However, over 2,000 surgeries remain suspended here too.

A similar situation was seen in Khyber Teaching Hospital too where senior doctors took the initiative to defy the strike and attend patients.

Getting the lists ready

On the other hand, the provincial government high-ups held a meeting in Banigala, Islamabad, where senior party leadership directed them to make a list of doctors and paramedics who have been involved in protests in the last three years.

The K-P health authorities will issue these people show-cause notices and also send letters to their parents. Finally, the protest leaders will be removed from service and new doctors will be hired, the meeting was told, sources said.

Although legally, an 18-year old is considered a major, a person responsible for his own actions, in Pakistan, parents of 30-year old doctors are called in to discipline their wards, sources said affirming that actually works.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2019.