PESHAWAR, Feb 19: The Frontier province contract doctors association has begin a hunger strike against what it terms an unjust and uncalled for attitude of the government towards the doctors problems.

Contract doctors established a hunger strike camp opposite the Peshawar Press Club here on Thursday, which according to the association's president will continue till Feb 22.

Speaking to reporters at the camp, doctors body president Dr Syed Taimur Shah said the government was not paying heed to solve their problems. According to him, every government had promised to regularize their jobs but to no avail.

He said the government had asked the contract doctors to qualify the public service commission examination and interview to get their contracts extended, which he said was unjust and uncalled for. He said that all these doctors had passed the PSC's tests on more than one occasion.

Flanked by other office-bearers of the association, he said the contract doctors had been working in far flung areas of the province against meagre salaries and the government should acknowledge their services by giving them regular jobs.

Dr Shah said the government should take into account their experience while making appointments, because millions of rupees were spent on their training. The government of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan had already regularized the services of contract doctors, but the MMA-led government was adamant to deprive them of even their contractual jobs.

He said that over 700 contract doctors will wear black arm-bands as a mark of protest at their duty places and will not attend patients in protest.