Doctors’ protest: Striking doctors could risk losing their licences
OPDs at all public hospitals shut as doctors go on strike, boycott to continue today.
LAHORE:
The government is considering writing to regulatory authorities to cancel the licences of doctors who go on strike, after a group of doctors defied Health Department warnings and allegedly violated Supreme Court orders to go on strike over the suspension of some Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) doctors.
Out patient departments (OPDs) at all public hospitals in Lahore were closed while the OPD and indoor wards at PIC were shut on Wednesday, as a group of doctors headed by Dr Hamid Butt and claiming to be the “real” Young Doctors Association went on strike. Some 15,000 to 20,000 patients visit OPDs of public hospitals in Lahore every day and all of them had to be turned away due to doctors’ strike, a Health Department official told The Express Tribune.
Operations scheduled weeks before had to be cancelled. Muhammad Ismail, a patient at Mayo Hospital, said he had travelled from Gujrat for surgery but couldn’t be treated due to the strike.
YDA spokesman Dr Aftab Ashraf said that talks with Special Health Secretary Dawood Bareach had failed. “Health Department officials just kept threatening us with dire consequences if the protests continued,” he said, adding that the strike would continue on Thursday.
A Health Department official said that the government was considering various options to punish the strikers.
“We have told them time and again about the clear instructions of the SC against doctors going on strike,” he said. He said that some patients might die if the strike continues and then the doctors would be held responsible. “They think that in the worst case scenario, the government will fire them. But the government can do a lot more by writing to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to cancel their registration.
Then they will not be able to practice privately or find it easy to get jobs abroad,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 16th, 2012.
The government is considering writing to regulatory authorities to cancel the licences of doctors who go on strike, after a group of doctors defied Health Department warnings and allegedly violated Supreme Court orders to go on strike over the suspension of some Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) doctors.
Out patient departments (OPDs) at all public hospitals in Lahore were closed while the OPD and indoor wards at PIC were shut on Wednesday, as a group of doctors headed by Dr Hamid Butt and claiming to be the “real” Young Doctors Association went on strike. Some 15,000 to 20,000 patients visit OPDs of public hospitals in Lahore every day and all of them had to be turned away due to doctors’ strike, a Health Department official told The Express Tribune.
Operations scheduled weeks before had to be cancelled. Muhammad Ismail, a patient at Mayo Hospital, said he had travelled from Gujrat for surgery but couldn’t be treated due to the strike.
YDA spokesman Dr Aftab Ashraf said that talks with Special Health Secretary Dawood Bareach had failed. “Health Department officials just kept threatening us with dire consequences if the protests continued,” he said, adding that the strike would continue on Thursday.
A Health Department official said that the government was considering various options to punish the strikers.
“We have told them time and again about the clear instructions of the SC against doctors going on strike,” he said. He said that some patients might die if the strike continues and then the doctors would be held responsible. “They think that in the worst case scenario, the government will fire them. But the government can do a lot more by writing to the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to cancel their registration.
Then they will not be able to practice privately or find it easy to get jobs abroad,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 16th, 2012.