PESHAWAR: Hundreds of patients once again suffered as the health workers stayed away from duties on Tuesday, paralyzing health services at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Paramedics Association had given the call for strike in the province to press the government for acceptance of their demands. Though doctors and nursing staff were not part of the protest this time, they didn’t attend out-patients departments (OPDs), operation theatres, and kept the radiology and pathology departments closed for patients, pleading that since they didn’t have supporting staff, including paramedics and ward orderlies, it was not possible to provide services.
After observing strike at all the public sector hospitals of the province this month, the paramedics had given a deadline to the government three weeks ago to accept their demands, or else they would shut health services in LRH, KTH and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on March 29.
Unlike the LRH and KTH, the administration of HMC had made prior arrangements and that was the reason that indoor and outdoor patients didn’t suffer.
Some of the paramedics held a protest demonstration in the morning and then left for LRH, where paramedics from all over the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had arrived and staged a big demonstration.
The paramedics have been striving to get health professional allowance, remaining part of service structure and other issues related to the People’s Primary Health Initiative (PHHI), reportedly owned by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf secretary general Jehangir Tareen, exempted from financial audit, according to the officials of the Health Department.
The LRH administration alleged that lower hospital staff in connivance with the paramedics had forcibly locked rooms of the consultants in the spacious building meant for OPDs, stopping senior doctors from examining the patients.
This correspondent saw some of the doctors examining patients in corridors when the hospital administration failed to provide them their rooms.
The same was the case at the KTH, where only medical officers were seen examining patients in a limited number. All senior doctors remained absent from OPDs. Since the doctors and other health workers already knew about the strike, most of them arrived late while others were seen leaving the institutions early.
In the LRH and KTH, all surgical procedures were postponed. Similarly, radiology and pathology departments of the two hospitals remained closed.
“If the PTI-led government is sincere, it should ask the LRH and KTH administration that why patients didn’t suffer at HMC,” a senior consultant told The News at the KTH.
Pleading anonymity, he said senior doctors could have attended OPDs and provided services at operation theatres and other departments, had the administration cooperated.
A senior consultant in LRH said majority of the doctors didn’t come to provide services as they knew the hospital administration would not take action against them.
“After the LRH administration failed to take action against the absent doctors for not providing services on February 3 and 9, nobody cares now,” he said.
Hospital Director LRH Col (Redt) Dr Hamid Saeedul Haq said all non-clinical staff of the hospital under his domain was present to perform duty.
The protesting paramedics later took out a protest demonstration from LRH and marched towards the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, where they staged a protest sit-in.
Paramedics’ leaders, including Luqman Gul, Sirajuddin Burki, Syed Roeedar Shah, Islam Gul Mohmand, Mohammad Aslam Khan, and Wapda Hydro Union central leader Gohar Taj addressed the protesting health workers.
Sirajuddin Burki said it was the government that forced them into strike. He said they had called off strike in February on the request of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak after he called them to a meeting, accepted all their demands and promised to issue a proper notification in this regard.
Later, Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, Finance Minister Syed Muzaffar Said and MPA Saeed Gul held talks with representatives of the paramedics and promised to accept all their genuine demands.
The two ministers told them that summary about HPA had been sent to chief minister and he will sign it very soon.
About other issues such PPHI, service structure and cancellation of transfer orders of paramedics’ leaders to other districts, the ministers said they would form a committee to properly address these matters in the next few days. The paramedics called off strike and decided to set a up protest camp outside the Peshawar Press Club if their demands were not accepted before April 4, 2016.