PESHAWAR, July 28: Junior doctors of the Lady Reading Hospital, who have been on a token strike for the past few days, on Saturday held a demonstration outside the Peshawar press club in support of their demands.
The demonstration was organised by the Provincial Doctors Association to denounce what they called “inhuman attitude” of the provincial health ministry towards the basic demands of doctors performing duty against “nominal stipends” at public and private hospitals.
They warned that the doctors of the Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Medical College would also observe a token strike on Monday, if the government failed to resolve their problems.
The protesting doctors carried banners inscribed with demands about better service structure, increase in basic salary and emoluments, provision of accommodation and security at hospitals.
They also took out a procession from the press club and marched on the Sher Shah Soori Road.
The doctors raised slogans against the provincial government and the health ministry.
Speaking at a news conference at the press club, PDA president Dr Abdul Qadir Khan said doctors, who were considered as provider of good cure of diseases, were caught in a web of complicated problems.
He said that the government was paying no heed to acute problems faced by doctors, serving day-and-night at the big public sector hospitals.
He said that doctors were not attending wards and out-door patients for several days owing to “inhuman stance” of the health ministry towards doctors’ basic and genuine demands.
The PDA president warned that they would close the emergency, if their problems were not solved.
He read out an eight-point demands and asked the government to improve their service structure in the light of present day needs, provide accommodation, make handsome increase into stipends of doctors and their other professional allowances.
Dr Qadir urged the government to provide doctors security during duty hours, provide them parking facility in the premises of hospitals, improve standard of food at canteens and hostels and promote all those doctors whose promotion had not been made so for.
He said the Punjab government had made double enhancement in the salary and emoluments of doctors and the NWFP government had not taken any step to improve the service structure of doctors and pathetic conditions in hospitals.
The PDA president said the NWFP had 4,793 doctors for 20 million people which did match to the World Health Organisation criterion.
