Service structure: Doctors announce sit-in at CM’s Secretariat on Nov 7
The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab is planning protest marches by doctors from Rahim Yar Khan and Rawalpindi to converge in Lahore and a sit-in at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on November 7.
The plans were made at a meeting of the YDA Punjab General Council in Multan on Saturday night. The marches and the sit-in are meant to press the government to accept the doctors’ demands for changes to their service structure. Doctors’ groups including the YDA Punjab are currently also engaged in negotiations with the government on the subject.
YDA Punjab spokesman Dr Nasir Bokhari said that the organisation had planned a series of protests before the long march, starting with a demonstration at Children’s Hospital on Monday.
“All departments will remain functional at the hospital and there will not be any disturbance for the patients,” said YDA Punjab General Council member Dr Khuzema Arslan Bokhari.
Dr Nasir Bokhari said the YDA would also call on civil society activists and political parties to brief them about their problems. “We will tell them how the Punjab government is depriving doctors of their rights,” he said.
Dr Mudassir Razzaq Khan, another participant in the General Council meeting, said the YDA Punjab would continue its protests against the government till a murder case against some Mayo Hospital doctors over alleged medical malpractice was quashed, and the service structure issues were resolved.
Asked why the YDA Punjab was announcing a protest schedule when the negotiations with the government had recently yielded a signed agreement on some of the service structure issues, Dr Khan said that there was no agreement yet on several major issues. “We are using our legal right to protest to highlight these issues,” he said.
Protest schedule
According to a schedule announced on Monday, the YDA Punjab will protest at Children’s Hospital at 11am on Monday, at Shaikh Zayed Hospital Rahim Yar Khan on Tuesday; at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and the Punjab Dental Hospital Lahore on October 17; at Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur on October 18; at Mayo Hospital Lahore and Nishtar Medical College Multan on October 22; at Allied Hospital Faisalabad on October 22; at Rawalpindi on October 23; at Jinnah Hospital Lahore on October 24; at Services Hospital and Ganga Ram Hospital in Lahore on November 1; at Gujrat and Gujranwala on November 3; and at Lahore General Hospital and Shaikh Zayed Hospital Lahore on November 5.
General Cadre Doctors
Meanwhile, the General Cadre Doctors Association has welcomed recent progress made in the talks with the government. Addressing a GCDA Provincial Council meeting on Sunday, GCDA Punjab President Dr Masood Akhtar Sheikh said that dealing with the various structure issues separately and then signing agreements on points on which consensus had been reached was a practical approach to the talks.
Dr Sheikh briefed the council on the doctors’ representatives latest meeting with the special health secretary. “The Health Department seems very positive now and wants … all the stakeholders to be satisfied. A proper service structure is the only answer to the current issues,” he said.
He said that most issues had been agreed upon in principle. “It is just a matter of fine tuning,” he said.
Dr Sheikh said that the GCDA was the biggest stakeholder in the talks, since there were 14,000 General Cadre doctors in the province, compared to just 2,500 Teaching Cadre doctors and 1,200 specialists.
Dr Asad Abbas Shah said that the doctors should be flexible in the negotiations. “If no consensus can be reached on some point on the agenda, a committee of doctors’ representatives should be set up to carry on brain storming on the issues,” he said. “A few issues should not create a deadlock in the negotiations.”
Dr Rana Rafique said that the final service structure should be balanced and not favour one cadre over the others.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2012.
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Doctors cum butchers again going to kill patients. I would suggest to register "criminal negligence" cases if someone dies in hospital due to YDA strike.