Seniority: 1,700 SDI doctors protest for their right to promotion

Dr Thalho said that the PPP government had deliberately ignored the genuine issues of doctors.

KARACHI:

The Sindh government regularised the jobs of 1,700 doctors in 2003 but their rights were not recognised and they were not promoted on the basis of seniority, claimed Sindh Doctors Ittehad (SDI) president Dr Muhammad Ali Thalho.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, Dr Thalho was of the view that their struggle for the rights of the doctors’ community had been supported by the workers of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) when their rival political party - the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) - was in power.

According to Dr Thalho, the salaries of doctors were stopped due to a financial crunch in 1997, after which the SDI started its struggle that continued for 3,100 days and included 1,600 demonstrations, token hunger strikes and sit-ins.

“We have over 20,000 news stories published in national newspapers. We saw three chief ministers and four governors but our issue has not been addressed,” he said.

The SDI leader was one the main supporters of the PPP and among those workers who were the closest to Benazir Bhutto. He said that the PPP government had deliberately ignored the genuine issues of doctors.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2013.