PESHAWAR: The situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has become critical as the protesting doctors continued their strike for fourth consecutive day on Saturday.The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday claimed it would open all outpatient departments and resume services from Saturday.However, it didn’t happen anywhere in the province as neither senior nor young doctors bothered to join duty.The hardened stance of the protesting doctors prompted the KP government to deploy police in major hospitals on Saturday to ensure security of the doctors and paramedics willing to join duty.The government had also deployed armoured personnel carriers (APCs) in the hospitals but luckily there was no mishap between the doctors and police.The KP government issued a letter, saying Chief Minister Mahmood Khan would talk to representatives of the protesting doctors on Tuesday (May 21) that shows the government was least bothered to mitigate sufferings of the patients.Also, the letter addressed to the KP Doctors Council (KPDC), conglomerates of all associations of doctors, is circulated on social media but senior office-bearers of the protesting doctors said they had not yet received any formal invitation from the government.Dr Alamgir Yousafzai, provincial patron-in-chief of YDA, first expressed shock over the alleged lack of interest in resolving doctors’ issues and then denied being invited to any such meeting by the government.“This is very funny as we haven’t been invited to any meaningful dialogue, except that letter, but asked to call off strike.How can we call off strike when we don’t have anything in hands to believe in what the government is saying,” said the YDA chief.Dr Alamgir said they didn’t stop any doctor by force to join duty and even though the government deployed police but none of the doctors came to duty.Meanwhile, the doctors as usual stayed away from duty on Saturday in the public sector hospitals and didn’t provide services.Health workers also joined the protesting doctors on Friday virtually paralysing health services in public sector hospitals all over the province.Provincial Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai had told The News on Friday that the government would deploy police in the hospitals but would not use force against the protesting doctors as it was their democratic right to protest.However, he said the government would not allow the protesters to make the poor patients suffer.He denied threatening the doctors or setting a deadline for them to join duty. The doctors in KP have been protesting since Wednesday.They suspended health services, except emergency cover, in the tertiary care hospitals as well as in the peripheries.The strike entered its fourth consecutive day as all the state-run hospitals continued to wear a deserted look.The doctors started protesting against the alleged physical torture of Assistant Professor Dr Ziauddin by the security guards of Health Minister Dr Hisham Inamullah at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).However, the doctors had already announced to suspend services for two days a week against the proposed laws being introduced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government.The government said it had planned devolution of powers in the health sector and wanted to give autonomy to the health facilities in the peripheries through District Health Authorities (DHAs) and Regional Health Authorities (RHAs).The doctors had refused to allow the government to implement the new system- DHAs and RHAs - in the districts and termed it the first step towards privatisation of the state-run health facilities.The protest initially started from the KTH, where the incident involving the health minister and a surgeon happened and later spread to hospitals of the entire province.All associations of the doctors are protesting against the government and they managed to paralyse health services at KTH, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC).On Friday, the protesting doctors went from ward to ward to stop their colleagues from treating the patients.But there was no protest anywhere in any hospital on Saturday but all services remained close.In KTH and LRH and to some extent HMC, all OPDs remained close and only police personnel and a few of the hospital class-IV employees were present.“Most of the doctors had come to the hospital but not a single of them attended OPD, operation theatre and other services today.The hospital administration has issued strict orders not to allow media people to the hospital premises to talk to the patients,” an official of KTH told The News.There has been no surgical procedure in any of the hospitals in KP since Wednesday, though the HMC administration claimed they did some surgeries. The doctors also suspended diagnostic services in the hospitals.Though there was no rush of patients in hospitals due to Ramazan and only patients needing special care or surgeries were brought to the OPDs or casualty departments of the tertiary care hospitals, some of the patients admitted in the three hospitals in Peshawar left for homes in disappointment.“The ones who could afford had already shifted their patients to private hospitals and the poor people had no other option but to go home,” a paediatric surgeon in KTH told The News.The doctors in Nowshera, Mardan, Swat, Dir, Chitral, Abbottabad, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan have suspended services in hospitals.Except Shaukat Yousafzai and Health Secretary Dr Farooq Jameel, not a single government official has taken notice of the plight of the patients.The government has not constituted any committee to initiate negotiations with the protesting doctors.Dr Hisham Inamullah, the health minister, is out of the picture after the Tuesday’s incident. Many people blame two persons - Dr Ziauddin and Dr Hisham- for the ongoing crisis in the province.Some PTI office-bears told The News that they were planning to engage senior party leadership to resolve the issue between Dr Hisham and Dr Ziauddin and then negotiate with the protesting doctors.Dr Ziauddin is the cousin of former minister of state for interior Shehryar Afridi, who as per some reports unsuccessfully tried to reconcile the parties.Dr Ziauddin is reportedly being influenced by some people supposed to be against the PTI government.Meanwhile, the protesting doctors vowed to continue the protest till acceptance of their demands.Dr Alamgir Yousafzai, president of Young Doctors Association in KTH, told The News that they would continue to keep the hospitals closed till removal of Dr Hisham Inamullah and Dr Nausherwan Burki and scrapping of laws such as MTI, DHA and RHA.“We are protesting for the rights of the people and against privatisation of government hospitals. Would you believe, there is no position of civil servants in hospitals under DHAs and RHAs,” he said.He claimed the doctors would have no job security in institutions run by the MTI, DHAs and RHAs.
from The News International - National http://bit.ly/30qZ1xe
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