PESHAWAR: Nurses’ strike paralyses health system in NWFP
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, March 23: Health delivery system across the province was paralysed after nursing staff of government and teaching hospitals went on indefinite strike from Wednesday the acceptance of their demands. Despite an official holiday on Thursday, the patients’ flow was not thin, and doctors were hard pressed as they simultaneously had to examine and medicate the patients.
The strike, which had been called by the NWFP chapter of the Pakistan Nurses Association, proved to be a severe blow for the provincial government, but the health ministry had not abandoned its carrot-and-stick policy. It still appeared to be adamant in accommodating students of the Khyber Girls Medical College in the hostel of Postgraduate College of Nursing.
The government has warned nurses that if they did not end their strike, they could lose their jobs.
Simultaneously, the government, through the chief executive of the Lady Reading Hospital, Dr Abdus Samad Khan, was negotiating with the office-bearers of the nurses association. Reportedly, the government had agreed to reinstate two of the suspended staff nurses and given an assurance that nurses’ demands would be given due consideration well inside a month.
The nurses, who had once supported paramedical staff during their strike, faced a setback when hospital administrations deployed them. Paramedical staff was supporting doctors in wards where nurses were not attending their duties in the Lady Reading Hospital.
But paramedics were unable to perform all the duties of nurses and doctors at the three teaching hospitals said that patients’ care was at a razor’s edge.
It was observed that in the Lady Reading Hospital, 140 paramedics had been deployed and they were providing routine medical care to patients and helping doctors but when it came to gender-specific medical care there appears to be no substitute for nurses. Doctors said that patients in labour rooms, gynae and paediatric wards were the worst sufferers.
Officials at the city hospitals, however, said that at least one or two nurses were performing duties in casualty, general icu, labour room, cardiology and cardiology care units.
A similar situation prevailed in Khyber Teaching Hospital, where 174 paramedics had been called to work in place of nurses in addition to 15 nurses still performing duties in critical units like surgical, neuro-surgery, gynea, ECG, ICU and casualty wards.
Deputy medical superintendent, administration, Dr Zafar Afridi said that they were trying to sort out the solution.
Nurses are demanding of the government to revoke the decision to accommodate students of the KGMC at their hostel, enhancement of students’ stipend from Rs1,275 to Rs5,000, upgradation of their staff posts and charge nurses and establishment of a directorate for nurses.
Nurses are also calling for rationalising their service structure and their separation from the provincial health services academy, besides the re-instatement of two charge nurses, suspended by the government last week, and cancellation of transfer orders of two other staff nurses.
The association’s office-bearers said that the government was snatching their hostel from them that was built by the Ministry of omen Development, Islamabad.
Health Minister Inayatullah Khan said that the government wanted to accommodate 40 students of the KGMC at the nursing hostel for only six months. He said that these girls had been sleeping in a common room of the hostel of the Khyber Medical College and they had needed accommodation on immediate basis.
