KP CM wants disciplinary action against protesting health workers stopped

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed the provincial Health Department to stop disciplinary and punitive measures initiated earlier against the protesting health workers for strike and paralysing health services for more than two months in all the public sector hospitals of the province.

The Health Department on Wednesday issued a notification saying that the chief minister had directed that disciplinary proceedings initiated against doctors and other health employees for strike may be stopped henceforth and no further action may be taken against them.

Similarly, the chief minister has also directed the Health Department to release salaries of the protesting doctors and health workers, which were stopped after they refused to perform their duties and provide services to patients.

The chief minister also directed the Health Department to reinstate the doctors and health workers, who were suspended and terminated from services for their refusals to come to their duties and resume services.

The Health Department has also been directed that all posting and transfers done as a punitive measure may be reverted back and the health workers be posted against their previous positions.

The chief minister has ordered that process may be initiated to quash FIRs lodged against the protesting doctors and health workers under 3 MPO.

The government had logged FIRs against the protesting doctors and health workers who had observed a protest demonstration against the government and clashed with the police after the latter resorted to baton charge to disperse them from the Lady Reading Hospital. The doctors and health workers then announced a province-wide protest and stopped all type of services in the state-run hospitals of the province.