Doctors observe strike at MMC

 Non-provision of allowance

PESHAWAR: Health services remained suspended at the Mardan Medical Complex (MMC) on Thursday when the doctors boycotted their duties in a protest against denial of Health Professional Allowance (HPA) to them.

The protesting doctors vowed to stop all type of health services on the second day the protest on Friday. The Doctors Action Forum had given the call for strike.

Except emergency services, the protesting doctors boycotted out-patient departments (OPDs) and operation theatres and didn’t provide services at the radiology and pathology departments.

“Patients are given distant dates for normal surgical procedures in the hospital and patients supposed to be operated upon on Thursday were disappointed when came to know about the doctors’ strike,” a physician working at the MMC told The News on condition of anonymity.

There were also reports that majority of the doctors didn’t conduct regular morning ward round as a mark of protest against non-payment of HPA.The doctors later staged a demonstration outside the administration offices. They chanted slogans against the Board of Governors (BoG) of the Bacha Khan Medical College (BKMC) and its teaching hospital, MMC. The protesters unfurled banners on the main entrance of the hospital inscribed with “Go BoG, Go BoG” slogans.

They said the government had announced HPA for all the doctors, paramedics and nursing staff but the finance department later issued a notification and stopped the allowance for doctors working in the hospitals recently declared as Medical Teaching Institutions (MTI) following the promulgation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical and Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015.Also, the finance department in a letter sent to the MMC administration had directed the doctors to return the amount paid to them in the form of HPA.