Young doctors blast govt’s apathy

PESHAWAR: Criticising the provincial government’s apathy, the representatives of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday said that no one was serious in resolving their issues.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Asfandyar, YDA KP president, and Dr Faisal Barakzai, information secretary, said that they had held meetings with the government officials but no one had shown interest in resolving the doctor community’s problems. They would no longer tolerate the government indifference and would stage a protest outside the provincial assembly building from September 17. “We will lay siege to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly building and the government will be held responsible for any untoward incident,” said Dr Asfandyar.

He said that 194 TMOs were working without pay for the last several months and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was using delaying tactics in resolving the issues.“The process of recruitment of doctors through the Public Service Commission has been stopped while the jobs in MTIs were being provided on the basis of political affiliations,” he added. Dr Asfandyar said that the province needed more than 10,000 doctors according to the WHO criteria. He demanded lifting the ban on the doctors’ recruitment through the Public Service Commission to bring improvement in the health sector.

The doctors’ representatives said that the salaries of TMOs and medical officers should be raised by 25 percent. “The salaries of doctors must be raised like that of ministers and bureaucrats,” Dr Asfandyar said.

“The hospitals are without CT Scan and MRI machines,” said Dr Asfandyar and termed the government claims of bringing about changes in the affairs of the hospital a mere rhetoric.The young doctors said that the media should be allowed free coverage in hospitals to expose the government claims of improvement.