Doctors on strike: PDA threatens province-wide demonstrations

Demands regularisation of all ad-hoc doctors in the province.

PESHAWAR:

The interim cabinet of Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) has warned the provincial health department that if does not regularise all ad-hoc doctors of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), they will hold province-wide demonstrations in Ramazan.

“No doctor wants to hold strikes since the patients suffer, but if the government is not interested in accepting our demands peacefully, we are left with no other choice,” PDA senior vice president Dr Munir Mehsud said while addressing the media.

He added that many doctors were regularised under the previous government of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). However the present government,  by not regularising was putting the future of around 450 doctors at risk.

Ad-hoc Doctors Action Committee general secretary Dr Ashfaq Khattak said that hundreds of doctors have passed their PCS examinations but were still waiting to be inducted in hospitals.

“Insecurity of jobs, non regularisation of doctors’ services and lack of health policy in K-P have compelled thousands of doctors to go abroad to pursue their careers which is a great loss for the country” Dr Khattak said.

He added that policies of the provincial government have not only affected the doctors’ community negatively but afflicted patients as well due to the regular strikes.

“A doctor appointed in BPS-17 retires in the same grade without any promotion which is unjust,” he said.

The doctors have also demanded a new service structure and the withdrawal of the Essential Services Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2012.