Healthcare workers protest across Sindh

Polio workers, doctors, nurses raise voice against health dept

HYDERABAD/ KARACHI: Healthcare workers across the province, including doctors, nurses, and even polio workers, rose up in protest against the government for its failure to accept their demands.

Opposing the dismissal of 4,900 workers from 89 union councils (UCs) in Karachi during the lockdown, the Sindh polio programme's community-based vaccinators (CBVs) staged a protest outside the Karachi Press Club on Monday.

The CBVs claimed that they were appointed by the government in 2017 to support the polio vaccination drives at a salary of Rs17,500 a month, but they were suddenly removed from their jobs during the lockdown. They demanded that Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho reinstate them immediately.

Meanwhile, an Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) spokesperson revealed to The Express Tribune that the decision to remove the CBVs was made in November 2019. He explained that these workers, who had been operating in high-risk areas, had been hired on a daily basis and did not hold any legal contract or framework outlining their term.

The spokesperson asserted that the CBVs were dismissed for the betterment of the polio programme, adding that a new strategy was being developed for the 89 UCs in question.

Black day

Separately, the Young Doctors Association (YDA) observed a black day at many government hospitals across the province, wearing black armbands as they worked to protest the Sindh health department's 'poor management.'

They stated they would continue serving the public until Eidul Fitr.

The YDA had previously held a meeting with Pechuho, where, according to YDA Sindh president Dr Omer Sultan, the Sindh government had agreed to their demands. However, he said, a notification in this regard was yet to be issued.

"The meeting with Pechuho was successful but it was just a meeting and nothing else," said Sultan adding, "We [YDA] need a notification immediately."

The doctors' demands include risk allowances, the payment of 13 months' pending salaries of doctors from Larkana and Sukkur, provision of the personal protective equipment (PPE), and the provision of security to health professionals working in major hospitals, where attendants usually clash with them.

Currently, only 20 per cent of the doctors in the province are provided with PPE, according to Sultan, who insisted that it was time to save the lives of the frontline warriors.

"The government has exposed us [doctors] to the coronavirus by forcing us into the battlefield without safety gear," said YDA Hyderabad president Dr Roshan Chandio, protesting at Liaquat University Hospital, Hyderabad. Reiterating the demand for provision of PPE to all doctors working in hospitals, he lambasted the Sindh government for its apathy towards medical workers.

According to him, the provincial government had so far only equipped those doctors, paramedics, nurses, and other staff with PPEs who were working in Covid-19 wards or were involved in screening suspected patients.

Doctors carried out token boycotts of work and held protests in Nawabshah, Sukkur, Larkana, Dadu, and other districts as well.

Nurses threaten to quit

Meanwhile, the Young Nurses Association (YNA), on the seventh day of their ongoing protest, warned the Sindh government that if their demands were not met before Eidul Fitr, they would stop working at government hospitals.

Pointing out that they were protesting during Ramazan amid the hot weather, YNA general secretary Heera Lal deplored that the government seemed indifferent to their demands.

A senior official at the health department, meanwhile, called the protests by the health workers a "form of blackmail" in the middle of a crisis. Acknowledging that the nurses' concerns were genuine and claiming they would be addressed, he added, however, that they should protest without letting it affect their work.

He further said that the removal of the CBVs was not a provincial matter, pointing out that the same had been done in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa too.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2020.