Medics keep services suspended on 38th consecutive day

PESHAWAR: The health workers, including doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and class-IV workers continued the strike for 38th consecutive day on Monday and kept all services suspended in the public sector hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Also, the health workers on the call of Grand Health Alliance (GHA) gathered at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and staged a protest demonstration where Dr Nausherwan Burki, the architect of so-called health reforms of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had arrived for chairing a meeting.

The protesting doctors, paramedics and Class-IV employees chanted slogans against Dr Nausherwan Burki. They accused him of privatising the state-run health facilities in the province allegedly on the dictates of the International Monitory Fund (IMF).

The district administration had deployed police force in large number at the LRH and ensured security to Dr Burki. The police, however, didn’t use any force this time to disperse the protesting doctors. The doctors and other health workers were given space inside the hospital premises to register the protest. Since Dr Nausherwan Burki is in the town, he should play his role in resolving this issue by convening a meeting of leaders of the protesting health workers.

It is believed that all people in the government are helpless to talk to the protesting doctors as final decisions are to be taken by Dr Burki. Meanwhile, the strike of the health workers entered in 38th day and there seems no indication they would call off the protest soon. The doctors, paramedics, nursing staff and non-technical employees Class-IV workers have been on strike since September 27. They have paralysed health services in the public sector hospitals of the province.

No serious effort has been made by the government or the protesting doctors to sit together and resolve the issues through negotiations.

The two sides - the government and the protecting health workers- have been accusing each other of rigid stands and causing sufferings to the patients. The health workers under the banner of the GHA, are protesting against the Regional Health Authority (RHA) and District Health Authority (DHA) which the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed recently.

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 the 27th of the month when the police used baton charge and teargas shells to disperse the protesting health workers at the 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.

The government then released all the health workers, reportedly on the demand of senior doctors who tried to reconcile the two sides almost a month ago.

They expected the protesting health workers will welcome this decision and will call off their strike. The doctors and their allies vowed to continue the strike until the government accepted their demands.

And since then, all the health workers have been on a 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.

The nonstop strike of the doctors had flourished the business of the private health sector, particularly established private hospitals, in Hayatabad.

According to the doctors in the two prominent private hospitals, the patient burden on them has almost doubled after the doctors in the public sector hospitals launched the protest.