Doctors boycott OPDs for second day in Sindh

Forced to work without PPE, deprived of salaries

KARACHI: Doctors, nurses and paramedical staff boycotted out-patient departments at Sindh’s public hospitals on Tuesday from 9am to 11am, protesting the non-provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), allowances and salaries, besides making other demands, for the second consecutive day.

Rallying on the call of the Grand Health Alliance, they demanded Shuhada package, health risk allowance, provision of PPE, establishment of separate isolation wards for health workers infected with the coronavirus, promotion of nurses and paramedics, adoption of four-tier formula for health workers’ promotions and ensuring security at public hospitals.

Besides, the GHA has already submitted a 13-point charter of demands to the Sindh government, warning to go on a strike from June 11 in case their demands are not met.

Meanwhile, postgraduate doctors and house officers at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital also staged a protest, decrying that it had been two days since they started protest demonstration but their pleas seemingly fell on deaf ears.

“We have been working without PPE in one of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s biggest hospitals,” said one of the protesters, adding that they had not been paid salaries for the past five months even though they were putting their lives at risk in the line of duty.

They maintained that forcing them to work without PPE and depriving them of salaries was unjust and appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah to get their issued resolved. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2020.