PESHAWAR: The roads in Peshawar city witnessed the worst traffic mess when non-technical employees of health department went on strike to demand professional allowance.

The members of Paramedical Association (Class-IV) belonging to different districts gathered at Jinnah Park from where they marched towards the provincial assembly building. The protest caused logjams on all roads in the city.

Later, Provincial Minister for Finance Muzaffar Said met the protesting employees and accepted their demand of granting them health professional allowance. The protest ended after people faced great hardships on roads for no fault of theirs.

The government employees are in the habit of coming on roads for petty matters, without thinking about ensuing problems for the people visiting the provincial capital from all over the province.

Minister promises health dept employees allowance

Bumper-to-bumper vehicular traffic also made it difficult for the ambulances to pass by.

Addressing the protesters, Nabi Ameen, president of the association, said that 19,583 staffers of health department had been left out of the allowance. He said that they were also at risk like other employees and deserved to be given the allowance.

“There is growing unrest among the non-technical employees including IT technicians, maintenance staff, electricians, ward orderlies and sweepers. They are part and parcel of the hospitals and demand equal rights for all the employees,” said Mr Ameen.

He said that the minister had assured them of granting them health professional allowance within a week. He said that they would again take to the streets if the minister didn’t fulfil his promise.

Mr Ameen said that they also risked their lives while performing duty. Deprivation of Class-IV employees of the allowance had created unrest among the members of the association. He said that they were ready to render any sacrifice for getting the allowance. “However, we called off the strike after the assurance of the minister,” he added.

Enraged by the road blockade, the commuters and motorists cursed the protesters and also criticised government for its failure to prevent people from creating obstacle in smooth flow of traffic. Patients in local hospitals also faced inconvenience owing to absence of technical staff but operation theatres, laboratory, radiology and emergency departments operated as usual.

In teaching hospitals, attendants themselves shifted their patients on stretchers from OPD to wards and operation theatre. They also worked as ward orderlies and gatekeepers in the hospitals during the course of the protest.

Senior officials said that the non-technical staff didn’t fulfil prescribed criteria for entitlement to health professional allowance. They said that only doctors, nurses and paramedics were entitled to the allowance as they came into contact with all sorts of patients and were vulnerable to infections.

However, the protesters believed that they would get something out of the protest. In the past, the building of provincial assembly had seen similar protests by doctors, nurse and paramedics to be able to get health professional allowance. The Class-IV employees have taken the same path to get the allowance.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2016