PESHAWAR: There seems no end to suffering of the patients as the doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and other health workers continued boycott of duties for fourth consecutive day on Tuesday by paralysing health services across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
They have been protesting since Friday last against the recently adopted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Regional and District Health Authorities Act 2019. Except for a few fiery statements by provincial Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai and Health Minister Dr Hisham Inamullah, which further infuriated the medical community, the government is yet to take note of woes of the patients. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leadership in KP argued they introduced the law for a comprehensive and efficient healthcare in the province to devolve authority and accountability at the regional and district level by reorganising the health facilities.
The medical fraternity viewed it beginning of privatisation of the public sector facilities. First time all doctors’ associations, paramedics, nursing staff and low level non-technical workers had joined hands and withdrawn services in almost all the government-run health facilities of the province. Besides Peshawar’s three tertiary care hospitals, LRH, Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), the protesting health workers kept all services suspended in other districts. As usual, all outpatient departments, operation theatres, and radiology and pathology departments remained closed in LRH, KTH and HMC and in rest of the province. In LRH, where the protesting health workers were baton-charged by the police on Friday in which some of the doctors and paramedics suffered injuries, the doctors didn’t attend OPDs. The government deployed police in the three hospitals to ensure security of the doctors if they wanted to attend OPDs. a“It is prime responsibility of the medical directors to ensure presence of the faculty members. In LRH, there is no issue of security but the medical director didn’t take a single step to ensure faculty presence in OPDs,” an official of the Health Department told The News. A senior government official claimed that after investigations, it was found that some females were brought to the protest at the LRH “on rent” to give the impression as if nursing staff and other female health workers were present in large numbers. “After going through all videos of the protest demonstration in LRH, the police had showed maximum constraint and despite Section 144 in the LRH premises, they allowed the protesters to hold their meeting there. But there were some troublemakers who came from outside LRH and they planned to create law and order issue by throwing bricks and stones at the police,” a senior government official explained.
Pleaded anonymity, he said some of the miscreants had planned creating law and order issue and they succeeded in their work. A 65-year-old patient, Pos Khan, was brought to LRH with his broken leg a week ago from Bajaur for surgery. He said the surgery could not be done due to strike of doctors. Besides LRH, the police were deployed in and outside KTH but not a single doctor was able to attend OPDs. Some of the health workers, mostly paramedics and non-technical staff staged a protest demonstration at the main entrance to the KTH and kept the OPDs closed.
Some of the patients came from other districts as they were not aware of the ongoing strike and were waiting for the respective doctors to come to the OPDs. “I brought my ailing father from Buner. He suddenly lost weight and stopped eating properly. We have taken him to a doctor in Buner but he advised us to show him to a physician in KTH,” the attendant, Kiramat Shah, narrated his story. The doctors also kept their private clinics closed in the three hospitals and in Dabgari Garden in Peshawar. The protesting doctors vowed to continue their protest till all their 18 fellows were freed and cases against them withdrawn. The police had arrested 18 members of the Grand Health Alliance (GHA) on Friday, 13 of the doctors, from the protest in LRH and sent them to the Mardan jail. Those arrested also included Dr Alamgir Yousafzai and Syed Roidar Shah, chairman and president GHA, respectively. Dr Amir Taj, president Provincial Doctors Association (PDA), and other doctors accused the police of ruthlessly torturing the health workers who according to them, were peacefully protesting against RHA and DHA and reminding the government its promises made with them. Prof Musa Kalim, a senior paediatrician, held the government responsible for the situation. He shared minutes of a meeting held with CM Mahmood Khan on May 21 in which the chief minister had reportedly made certain commitments with the doctors. As per minutes, the government had agreed to sit with GHA representatives and seek their opinion before the RHA and DHA bill is tabled in the provincial assembly. He complained that the government didn’t even inform them and secretly tabled the bill in the assembly on September 23 and passed it next day. He said they had asked the government to stop victimising the doctors and cancel transfer orders of two senior doctors, Prof Riaz Anwar and Prof Sadaqat Jabeen.
