PESHAWAR, March 2: The stand-off between the government and its doctors over the issue of the ban on their private practice in their personal clinics continued on the second consecutive day as majority of the doctors boycotted the institution-based practice.
Defying the government’s orders to make the doctors start their private practice in public sector institutions from March 1, the Joint Action Committee of doctors, in a well-attended press conference here on Friday, maintained that the doctors would not join the institution-based practice.
Dr Umer Ayub, head of the JAC, said that if the doctors cannot continue their private clinics they would not sit in the public sector hospitals either.
The doctors’ representatives deplored the government’s move of removing sign boards from their clinics on Friday.
“Several of the senior registrars, associate and assistant professors, attended the three teaching hospitals on the second day of private practice in these institutions, disassociating themselves from the JAC,” said a senior health department official sources.
The doctors’ representatives, at the press conference, demanded of the government to enter into a meaningful dialogue with them to resolve the issue amicably.
“We are being told that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) would institute cases against us we did not turn up at the hospitals in the evening,” said Dr Umer Ayub.
However, in reply to a question, he said that they did not want to move the court at this stage because “we wanted to completely exhaust the dialogue option,” said Dr Umer.
However, he said, showing total disrespect to the governor’s instructions, the health department functionaries violated the agreement reached at their meeting with the governor.
According to him, the governor had allowed them to continue their private clinic outside the hospitals until March 30, a point rejected by the health department authorities in an official handout issued on Thursday, last.
Reports from other urban centres of the NWFP and agency headquarters of the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), also spoke of the positive response towards the institution-based private practice on the second day of its launch.
PESHAWAR, March 2: The stand-off between the government and its doctors over the issue of the ban on their private practice in their personal clinics continued on the second consecutive day as majority of the doctors boycotted the institution-based practice.
