MANSEHRA: Representatives of Young Doctors Association have threatened to tender resignations if the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led provincial government does not take them on board in its plan to privatise the public sector hospitals.

“The government wants to bring health system under the community control, which in other words, is an attempt to privatise the tertiary care hospitals in the province, which is unacceptable to us at any cost,” Dr Yasir, an office-bearer of the association, told reporters here on Monday.

The doctors, who have been on strike since May 16, didn’t attend patients at the out-patient-departments of the hospitals across the district on Monday.

The doctor’s check-up rooms remained locked and police personnel roamed the premises of the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital, the sole tertiary healthcare facility in the upper parts of Hazara division, including Mansehra, Battagram, Torghar and Kohistan districts.

Dr Yasir said that if the government wanted to introduce what he said an American-imported healthcare system in the province, then it should also overhaul the excising governance system in the country.

“We have collected resignations from doctors, and in case our demands which are in favour of public, are not met then we will not hesitate to submit our resignations to the government,” he threatened.

The YDA leader said that though Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had called a meeting of the provincial body of the YDA for negotiations on Tuesday (today), even then the doctors’ fraternity was disappointed by the government’s attitude as it could have initiated the talks process from the very first day of the strike or even before to save the patients from suffering.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2019