K-P to fire 40 doctors for inciting protests

Enough is enough, says health minister after over 10-day shutdown of govt hospitals

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Minister for health Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan has said that the government has decided to remove 40 doctors from their positions.

The said doctors were involved in enticing other doctors to protest in the health facilities of the province and added they have already been issued show cause notices.

“Enough is enough,” the health minister said regarding the over 10-day shutdown of government hospitals by protesting doctors. “We have decided to provide relief to the people, who come to state-run hospitals for free healthcare,” Inamullah said talking to the media in the premises of the K-P Assembly.

He said the government has no intention of privatising the public sector hospital or dismiss the doctors. “We even rendered apology on the ‘pakora selling doctors and engineers’ statement in media,” he said.

Meanwhile, speaking at a joint press conference with the provincial adviser to the Chief Minister Ziaullah Bangash and provincial law minister Sultan Muhammad Khan and along with lawyer the provincial health minister said that new law isn’t harmful to the public and those who have reservations on the act should study it first and then make comments.

He dispelled the impression that hospitals were being privatised and added that they were improving the system.

The provincial minister said that under the Regional and District Health Authorities, the hospitals were being empowered at local level. He reiterated that the word of privatization had used nowhere in the Regional Health Authority (RHA) and District Health Authority (DHA) Bill and the civil servant status of the doctors has been maintained that will continue till the year 2058.

He attributed the failure of the system to weak accountability system. Clarifying the context of the selling of 'Pakora', he tendered apology to doctors and maintained that the statement of Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai was taken out of context that had not only hurt the doctors' community rather also engineers. He went on to say that 'Pakora' sellers should not be considered inferior and he regrets for being a doctor. “On the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan, we have decided to provide relief to the public by making the system more compact.”

He made it clear that the pension and perks and privileges would be remained at place and 700 new doctors to be appoint but they would be under the regional and district health authorities and they wouldn’t be civil act they to be under public servants, as our only aim to made the system more accountable and doctors and TMOs will be reporting to the regional health authorities.

While replying to a question the provincial health minister said that hospitals are open serving it people and those group who using their political motives or gains behind the protest and boycott would be issued show cause notice them first and later staged they will be terminated from their services.

He made it clear to the public that there are only 200 to 300 doctors who have been on protest in the public hospitals and they should not consider provincial government weak, “we can take action, but due to the public welfare we are observing maximum restraint,” he said.

On dengue question the provincial healthy minister said that there are 26 deaths due to the dengue in the country, but we don’t have any death reports in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2019.