Govt releases 35 arrested health workers after mediation

PESHAWAR: After mediation by retired senior doctors, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday released all the 35 health workers, including doctors, paramedics and nursing staff, as a goodwill gesture, but the protesters refused to call off the strike till the acceptance of the demands.

The government had arrested them during a protest rally at the Lady Reading Hospital on September 27. The doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and non-technical staff of the public sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been on strike since September 27. They paralysed health services in all the government-run hospitals across the province.

The health workers went on a strike when the police used batons and teargas shells to disperse the protesting doctors, paramedics and nursing staff on September 27 who were opposing the recently adopted Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Regional and District Health Authorities Act 2019. Some of the doctors, paramedics and nursing staff suffered injuries in the police action. They announced a province-wide strike by suspending services in all the government hospitals.

The police had arrested 35 health workers and sent them to the Mardan jail. All the public sector hospitals have been closed since September 27 and the patients suffered. The government couldn’t take serious efforts to resolve this issue. The government and the protesting health workers have adopted a rigid stance so far and the ultimate sufferers of this standoff are the patients as the protesting doctors stopped attending patients in the outpatient departments, operation theatres, and refused to provide pathology and radiology services.

A group of retired doctors including Prof Sher Mohammad Khan, Prof Inayatur Rahman Khalil, Prof Mohammad Daud, Prof Lubna Hasan, Prof Abdul Hameed Khan, Prof Jamila Bilal and Prof Rafiullah Orakzai reportedly initiated efforts to mediate between the two sides.

They held a meeting with senior government officials and suggested to them to release all the health workers unconditionally to send a positive message. And the government ordered the release of all those 35 health workers who were taken into custody from the LRH and other places in Peshawar. Majority of them were members of the Grand Health Alliance (GHA) and leaders of their respective associations.

The GHA is an umbrella organisation of all the associations of doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and non-technical employees of the public sector hospitals.

It was widely expected that the health workers would call off the strike after the release of their fellows, but it didn’t happen. Senior office-bearers of GHA denied reports that they had called off the strike. “Releasing our colleagues was one of our demands. We would continue our protest till our demands are met,” a senior GHA representative told The News. Pleading anonymity, he said they had demanded the government to follow its directives about the formation of the ministerial committee for accommodating views of all stakeholders before passing the Regional Health Authority and District Health Authority.

He said they had also sought implementation of the Supreme Court’s verdict on irregularities in the Medical Teaching Institutions (MTIs) and called an end to the alleged victimisation of doctors, particularly those opposed to the MTI Act 2015.