Young doctors seeking better pay warn of another boycott

Young doctors of Sindh have once again threatened to boycott health services, including out-patient departments (OPDs), operation theaters and wards, if a notification increasing their salaries and allowances is not issued by the health department by Tuesday next, saying the department did not honour its promises, which was highly condemnable.

“Last week, young doctors from entire Sindh had called off their strike and ended their boycott of OPDs on assurances from Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho and Information and Law Advisor Murtaza Wahab that a notification regarding an increase in doctors’ salaries and allowances would be issued within three days. It is now 11th day since then and no such notification has been issued yet,” said Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) Sindh Chairman Dr Umer Sultan at a press conference held at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) on Saturday.

Accompanied by Dr Pir Manzoor of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Sindh, Dr Mehboob Ali, Dr Kamal Dev, Dr Abdul Latif and several others, YDA and PMA Sindh leaders alleged that the health department was using delaying tactics. They feared that health authorities were not serious in keeping their promises and honouring their commitments with the doctors.

They said they were compelled to use the method of boycotts and strikes due to the indifferent attitude of the government. They added that once government officials had assured young doctors that their demands would be met and a summary in this regard would be moved to the chief minister for approval, they had called off their strike and started serving patients.

“Although we were not showed any summary, we believed in the verbal assurances from the health minister, the secretary and the advisor on law, but they failed to keep their promises. We were assured that our demands would be met within three days, but it is over 10 days and there is no hope for the issuance of any notification any sooner,” Dr Umer Sultan observed.

Protesting doctors said they were going to boycott all the health services from Monday, February 11, but on the request from some media friends, they decided to give two more days to the health department and warned that if their demands were not met by Tuesday, young doctors in entire Sindh would not only boycott the OPDs but also stay away from duties at wards and perform surgeries in the operation theaters from Wednesday.

YDA and PMA representatives said they were not in favour of creating hurdles for thousands of patients who daily visited tertiary-care hospitals and basic health units from Karachi to Kashmore for seeking medical treatment, but they would be compelled to stay away from the OPDs and wards so that their longlasting demands could be accepted by the government.

PMA Sindh office-bearer Dr Pir Manzoor said doctors, especially YDA members, were demanding bringing their salaries and allowances at par with the doctors in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that although health department authorities had accepted their demands in principle, they were not willing to implement them, which was “shameful and condemnable”.

Young doctors’ representatives claimed that they were under tremendous pressure from other cities of the province to immediately resume the protest at all the health services in the province, but in the interest of patients who thronged public hospitals in a large number on Monday and Tuesday they had decided to give two more working days to the government to honour its commitment.

“And once we would start our boycott again from Wednesday, there would be no more negotiations and only a notification regarding an increase in doctors salaries, perks and privileges would convince us to resume our duties,” Dr Umer Sultan warned.