PESHAWAR: A string of protests and strikes by Young Doctors Association (YDA), representing house officers and trainee medical officers (TMOs), against the death of their colleagues at unprotected private hostels as well as their academic problems with regard to postgraduate medical education from the past few months have yet to arouse any response from the government.

Latest in the series was a hunger strike camp near Suri Pul to press the health department for resolution of their longstanding demands, but it too didn’t cause a stir despite falling unconscious of a couple of the striking doctors.

YDA representative Dr Mohammad Imran, who is pursuing postgraduate studies, told this correspondent that they had been disappointed at the stubborn attitude of the government.

YDA representatives say accommodation, central status for PGMI their main demands

“We have been demanding compensation for families of our colleagues who died at the private hostels in Peshawar and Abbottabad. Two of our doctors died of gas leakage because of the geysers installed in their rooms. Their deaths had been confirmed by the post-mortem reports,” he said.

Meanwhile, the health department was seeking the chief minister’s approval to give Rs3 million compensation to each of the doctors. The association has welcomed the move, but wants the government to resolve the accommodation problem on permanent basis. In most places, the TMOs live outside the hospitals in private hostels where security measures don’t exist.

There has been growing unrest among TMOs regarding their accommodation problem. Another main issue haunting them is devolution of the Postgraduate Medical Institute (PGMI) to the Medical Teaching Institutions (MTIs). They argue that prior to the implementation of the MTI Reforms Act 2015 the PGMI used to look after the administrative, financial and academic affairs of the TMOs throughout the province.

After its devolution, they would confront more problems because many specialties required the doctors to get training in different MTIs for which they wouldn’t be able to get their stipends and fulfil other requirements with regard to examination and training.

Dr Imran argues that a TMO who is doing specialisation is required to follow a rotation in different wards. A surgery TMO also needs training at the cardiovascular ward which exists only at the Lady Reading Hospital. And what will happen to his stipend if he goes for training to LRH from any other MTI because after the devolution the financial and administrative powers rest with the associate deans of the respective MTIs. Similarly, the situation in Swat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan and Mardan is not up to the desired level due to which the under-training doctors have to come to Peshawar for completion of mandatory training in different wards.

It will cause financial problems for the doctors and they will have to shuttle between MTIs and finance departments to get stipends.

Dr Ahmed Zeb, also a representative of YDA, said that about 2,500 TMOs discharging duties at the MTIs and other hospitals had been facing problems.

Last year, the health department took a decision of sending doctors to combined military hospitals and other health institutions and pledged to pay them stipends, but who would pursue their cases when PGMI stands devolved, he asked.

The enforcement of the MTIRA 2015 has also caused serious problems for those who have opted to maintain status quo by remaining civil servants instead of becoming institutional employees.

“We want the government to maintain the central status of PGMI so that TMOs in all hospitals of the province don’t face issues,” Dr Zeb said, adding that induction of TMOs should be done at the central level like past so that doctors didn’t face unnecessary issues.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2017