PDF concerned at ‘anti-doctors’ policy

ABBOTTABAD: People’s Doctors Forum (PDF) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has expressed concern over what it said is the anti-doctors policy of the provincial government and said that after failure of Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Act in tertiary care hospitals, it would now be implemented at the grassroots.

Briefing the media here, PDF spokesman Dr Daud Iqbal said the proposed District Health Authorities would deprive the poor people of health facilities in the province. He said doctors in the entire province had reservations against the District Health Authority, mass transfer policy and political interference in hospitals’ affairs. He asked the health authorities first to improve the MTI act before implementing it at district level hospitals. Dr Daud feared that poor people would be directly affected by privatisation of public sector hospitals as after introducing district health authority system, under which affairs of the hospitals would be run by private boards comprising political representatives, private doctors and nurses instead of the provincial health department.

He said that under the system, the hospitals would be brought under the supervision of political board of directors, which would lead to recruitments on the political grounds instead of merit in these health facilities.