No end in sight to sufferings of patients as strike of health workers enters 36th day

PESHAWAR: There seems to be no end to the sufferings of the patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the strike of doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and class-IV workers entered into 36th day on Friday as services are suspended in the public sector hospitals of the province.

All the health workers, including doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and non-technical employees and class-IV workers have been on strike since September 27. The strike has paralysed health services in the public sector hospitals of the province. After a futile effort by a group of retired doctors to negotiate between the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and the protesting doctors, there has been no serious attempt made by either side to sit together and find an amicable solution to the deadlock.

The two sides - the government and the protecting health workers -have refused to leave their rigid stance and accused each other of causing suffering to the patients.

The health workers under the banner of Grand Health Alliance (GHA) are protesting against the passage of the Regional Health Authority (RHA) and District Health Authority (DHA) from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly. The GHA is an umbrella organisation of all the associations of doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and class-IV workers of the public sector hospitals. They started the protest from September 25 from Khyber Teaching Hospital and then launched a province-wide strike from September 27 when the police used baton charge and teargas shells to disperse the protesting health workers at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

Some of the health workers, including doctors and paramedics, were injured while others were taken into custody and sent to the jail in Mardan.

According to the government, the health workers were allowed to hold the protest, but when they tried to enter the hospital premises and disrupt services in the out-patient department and wards at the LRH, the district administration used police force to stop them.

And since then, all the health workers have been on strike and refused to attend patients in the outpatient departments, operation theatres and suspended services in the pathology and radiology departments of the government hospitals.

All the health workers were paid their October salary in which they didn’t serve patients even for a day, but it did not move them. During the first days of the strike, some of the doctors claimed that they had also stopped attending private clinics and proudly shared photos of locked out private clinics.

However, within two days when they realised that the strike could continue for days so they started attending their private clinics.

It is strange that the Trainee Medical Officers are not government servants and are duly paid by the state for pursuing their postgraduate training in the hospitals have also joined the protesting health workers.

Many doctors, particularly surgeons, go to their private clinics and perform surgeries during duty hours.