KARACHI, Nov 26: Expressing concern over a stand-off between doctors and the Balochistan government, senior office-bearers of the Pakistan Medical Association on Monday appealed to the president, the prime minister and the chief justice of Pakistan to intervene in the matter in the larger interest of the thousands of poor patients in the province.

Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, they said that the government first ordered an uncalled-for police action against protesting doctors and now it was resorting to sacking more than 100 doctors there instead of solving their genuine problems.

The office-bearers were PMA (central) secretary-general Dr Mirza Ali Azhar, finance secretary Dr S.M. Qaiser Sajjad and Karachi PMA secretary Dr Qazi M Wasiq. They said that the Balochistan government appeared to be highly indifferent to the doctors’ demands pertaining to their security and if things continued unchanged then the PMA would be compelled to take extreme action, including a countrywide call for protests and strikes.

Dr Azhar said that the doctors in Balochistan had been working in highly insecure conditions for months, but the provincial government was acting against them, instead of protecting them from kidnapping and terrorism.

The PMA’s central body was under immense pressure from the protesting doctors and those associated with other chapters of the PMA and it had called an emergency meeting of the central councillors on Nov 28, Dr Azhar said, adding that if the governments in the province and the centre failed to address the doctors’ demands, the biennial conference of the PMA scheduled to be held in Quetta might turn into a protesting forum instead of confining itself to its routine academic discourse.

He warned that the government refrain from victimising the protesting doctors and accept their just demands.

The PMA also appealed to the Sindh health minister to play a role in mediating between the PMA and the Balochistan government.

Dr Sajjad said that the situation was worsening in Balochistan because of the callous attitude of the chief minister and the health minister of the province. Both the federal and the provincial government should resign for their failure to curb the incidents of doctors’ kidnapping and manage the affairs of the health sector, he added.