During the last one month, at least three patients in the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) died due to what the attendants described as absence of doctors. Most of these “absent” doctors were boycotting their services to primarily protest the low reward they receive for their work.
On March 10, Taqadus, a two-and-half-year-old girl who had come from Kallar Syedan, died.
Her father Tasawar told The Express Tribune, “There were no doctors in the ward to treat her. They were out there being a part of their strike.”
On March 29 Ghulam Fatima, 90, passed away in the BBH and on March 31 Sana, 12 and a resident of Kallar Syedan, died.
Decision to call off strike reversed late night
After month-long protests and strike, the plea of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab was finally heard by the provincial government. After holding negotiations with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Thursday, the doctors initially called off their strike.
Dr Mohammad Haroon, President YDA Rawalpindi, said the Punjab government had promised pay raise and better service structure for the doctors, and regularisation of those who are on contracts.
“The government has assured us that from July 1 our salaries will be increased, however the percentage is still yet to be decided,” he said.
He said currently there are 757 young doctors working in Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) and District Headquarter Hospital (DHQ). Of these 120 are working on contracts.
However, around half past eleven on Thursday, YDA held a press conference announcing they will continue their strike. They said the government, during their negotiations, refused to increase salaries for senior doctors leaving them with no option but to continue their strike.
Where it all began
The protest by YDA Punjab initially started against the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which has been occupying Rawalpindi Medical College’s (RMC) hostel for the past 10 years. Another issue on their agenda was increased wages.
The first rally was held on January 27. As a result of their protests, the NAB promised to vacate the hostel on two different occasions. Both times the deadlines were ignored.
Over the course of their protest, issues such as increased wages, revised service structure and regularisation of doctors took precedence on YDA’s priority list and the hostel was forgotten.
The doctors went on a continuous strike from March 1 across Punjab. To build pressure on the government, the YDA paralysed health services at the outpatient department (OPD) of various hospitals in the twin cities.
This created a lot of problems for patients visiting major public hospitals in Rawalpindi. The association decided to provide OPD services to these patients, some of whom came from far-flung areas, in temporary camps set outside the hospital.
The protest continued. On March 29, young doctors were arrested by the police in Lahore while protesting outside the Punjab Assembly. This made the situation worse, and YDA Punjab decided to withdraw all services from various public hospitals including emergency treatment.
Again, the only sufferers were the patients. “We are not even being provided with emergency treatment. It is as if neither the government nor the doctors care about us,” said Nazeer who had come to Rawalpindi from Mianwali to get his father checked.
On March 31, the doctors’ plea was finally answered. Several times in the last month, representatives of the doctors held meetings with the government officials that remained unfruitful. Their were some politicians who supported their cause and continued to negotiate with the government on their behalf, culminating into their fruitful meeting with the chief minister.
The forgotten hostel
Once the centrefold of their campaign, the Rawalpindi Medical College’s (RMC) girls’ hostel seems to have been all but dropped from the young doctors’ agenda. Their focus seems to have shifted to other things.
Their previous attempts to get the hostel vacated generated various promises from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to vacate the hostel. The NAB first promised to vacate the hostel by February 28 and then by March 7, but nothing happened.
Meanwhile the college administration has been forced to cramp more than 400 students in 205 rooms.
Dr Quratulain, who lives in the hostel and is also part of the ongoing Young Doctors Association (YDA) strike, said the hostel looks more like a darba (a battery cage). Each room measures 7 by 10 feet and is shared by two students. Small cabins serve as makeshift study, guest and common rooms. The space is so congested that even a mattress cannot be fitted inside.
Dr Aman Naseem, a third year student at the college who lives in the hostel, said, “Our living conditions are worse than those in jail.”
She added, “There are days when we get no water in the washrooms before getting ready for college.”
Students told The Express Tribune that the hostel administration had rented two houses in the doctor’s colony to accommodate students. “About 36 students are living in a five-room single-storey house,” said Erum Naz, who belongs to Sialkot. “Sometimes, we feel restricted like chickens, stuffed in a cage, unable to move at will,” she added. The hostelite also complained about the room rents shooting up from Rs23,600 to Rs29,300 this year.
When contacted, General Secretary YDA Rawalpindi, Dr Abbas Malik, conceded that they were not concentrating on the issue at present because of other issues, but will take it up soon.
Resolute as ever
On the other hand, a complete strike was observed by the doctors in the outpatient departments (OPDs) of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) and Federal Government Polyclinic (FGPC) on Thursday.
This was the sixth consecutive day of the strike. The YDA doctors gathered in front of Pims administration block and demanded the administration and government to resolve their problems.
Later, they also blocked the main road in front of Pims. Addressing the protesters, the Islamabad chapter president, Dr Sajid Abbasi, urged the government to regularise the services of contracted doctors working in the federal government hospitals.
He strongly condemned the arrest of doctors in Punjab and announced full support for them. He said YDA Islamabad Chapter has decided to start a complete boycott of OPDs and the operations theatres of Pims for an indefinite period.
He said the government was not showing interest in addressing their problems, so their ongoing strike will continue. The revised pay scale that they are pushing for will ensure salaries of up to Rs35,000 for a house officer, Rs80,000 for postgraduate trainee doctor, Rs120,000 salary for senior registrar, Rs200,000 for assistant professor and Rs300,000 for professor.
Taking serious notice of these issues, the Senate Standing Committee on Health termed the doctors’ demand genuine and asked the Ministry of Health to address the doctors’ issues as early as possible. The committee observed that the ongoing strike is causing problems for the patients and badly affecting services at the public hospitals in Islamabad.
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