PESHAWAR: Continuing with their protest camp outside the Lady Reading Hospital for the sixth consecutive day, the members of the Young Doctors Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Monday announced that its members would agitate from tomorrow (Wednesday) to demand service structure for themselves and protection of the Postgraduate Medical Institute from ‘decentralisation’.

YDA provincial president Dr Gulab Noor Afridi told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club that young doctors regretted the government’s apathy towards their ‘genuine’ demands.

“We have been sitting here in the scorching hot weather to claim rights but the relevant officials are unmoved,” he said.

Accompanied by Dr Adil, Dr Waqas, Dr Munir, Dr Usman and others, the YDA president said the health department was using delaying tactics to approve service structure for young doctors in real sense and thus, causing a sense of deprivation among them.

He also opposed the government’s plan to ‘decentralise’ the PGMI and said the YDA would not allow the health department to do so.

“The PGMI will lose its utility if it is decentralised to teaching hospitals in the province. It is the only institution where the doctors can get advanced training. Instead of decentralising it, the government should strengthen it,” he said.

The YDA president said the government had agreed to accept the young doctors’ demands during a recent meeting but there was no progress on it. He said Dr Nosheerwan Burki, chairman of the board of governors of the Post Graduate Medical Institute, Lady Reading Hospital, was to blame for the deteriorating health system in the province.

Dr Gulab said Dr Burki’s appointment as the BoG chief was the biggest political mistake of PTI chairman Imran Khan.

“Instead of enforcing the welfare model at medical institutions, the corporate one has been used and thus, privatising the entire health system,” he said.

The YDA president expressed concern about the delay in the payment of compensation to the families of the doctors, who died on duty, and urged the government to release the money to the relevant families.

He called for the provision of quality residential facilities to the doctors in different district saying the community’s members faced serous residential problems.

Dr Gulab Noor also demanded the government provide the benefits of endowment fund to house officers and TMOs and ensure their promotion in line with its commitment.

He called for probe into the ‘mismanagement’ in the third year MBBS examination of the Khyber Medical University.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2017