Public hospitals: YDA calls off strike for six days

Will resume strike if its demands are not met, say officials.

LAHORE:

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab has called off its strike in public hospitals, but will resume it should its demands for the release of its members arrested in Gujranwala not be accepted.

The YDA has been the subject of widespread condemnation since its members were caught on television cameras roughing up the medical superintendent of Gujranwala District Headquarters Hospital and ransacking his office on Wednesday. They also fought with cameramen and reporters covering the incident.

Speaking at a press conference at Services Hospital on Friday night, YDA officials said that the strike at outpatient departments and indoor departments was being called off for six days. Should the Health Department fail to accept its demands, the strike would be resumed.

These demands include the release of a dozen of its members arrested after the incident in Gujranwala and the dropping of charges against them, as well as disciplinary action against the health secretary.

YDA officials at the press conference said that they had decided to call off the strike in view of “assurances from the media”, though it was not clear what these were.

Outdoor departments and indoor departments at several public hospitals in the province had been closed or disrupted on Thursday and Friday. YDA members returned to work on Saturday morning.

The Health Department sacked two doctors, suspended six and issued show cause notices to five on Thursday over the Gujranwala incident. A Health Department spokesman said the government was not intimidated by the deadline and would not restore these doctors after six days, nor withdraw the cases.



The YDA has gone on strike several times in its short history, most notably for several months in 2011 and 2012 to demand better pay and revisions to the service structure for doctors employed by the Health Department.

Ethics

The YDA has been condemned by other medical associations, the Punjab Assembly and by the media over its reaction to the Gujranwala incident.

On Saturday, the General Cadre Doctors Association (GCDA) also slammed the young doctors, saying they should learn to handle differences of opinion without resorting to violence.

Addressing a press conference at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, GCDA President Dr Masood Sheikh called for ethics to be included in the curricula of studies for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as in special training workshops for house officers, postgraduate trainees and junior doctors. Doctors must learn how to deal in a professional manner with their seniors and juniors as well as with patients, he added.

He noted that in some developed countries, doctors who failed ethics exams were not allowed to practise, regardless of how good their clinical skills were. He said that the GCDA would organise a conference on ethical values in clinical practice soon.

Dr Asim Farooqui of the GCDA said that the association’s members had ensured that the strike did not cripple services at public sector health institutions.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2013.