LAHORE: Young doctors and nurses intensified their agitation on Friday after a clash with police at the health secretariat where they went to press the authorities into accepting their demands.

Police sprang into action when doctors tried to enter the premises of the health secretariat after their first meeting with officials remained inconclusive.

Officials alleged that some leaders of the Young Doctors Association (YDA), Punjab, brought ‘private people’ with them and tried to storm the premises of the health secretariat as a pre-planned move to “settle personal score” at a time when the country was facing an health emergency.

The YDA denied the allegations and said doctors of the state-run hospitals came to join the protest camp outside the health secretariat.

Health secretary puts his foot down after protest leader’s provocative speech against minister

The situation came to a head when YDA’s senior vice president Dr Shoaib Niazi passed ‘derogatory remarks’ against health minister Prof Dr Yasmin Rashid while speaking at the protest camp on Friday. The doctors and nurses under the banner of the Grand Health Alliance gathered to demand hefty financial incentives for the health practitioners irrespective of whether they were doing specified duties for coronavirus patients or not. Other demands of the young doctors were reinstatement of the YDA office-bearers and shifting of the doctors suffering from coronavirus to either five- star hotels or leading private hospitals.

The doctors and nurses threatened to go on hunger strike by setting up a camp outside the health secretariat till the acceptance of their demands. More than 60 doctors, nurses and paramedics were present outside the health secretariat to pressure the Punjab government to accept their demands. YDA president Dr Salman Haseeb, senior vice president Dr Shoaib Niazi and other senior office-bearers were present besides some postgraduate trainees.

“We want reinstatement of our colleagues, including senior office-bearers of our association,” Dr Shoaib Niazi told Dawn.

He said that during the last movement of his association against the Medical Teaching Institutions (MTI) Act, the Punjab government had suspended/terminated key office-bearers of the YDA.

During meeting on Thursday with health secretary Nabeel Awan, he said, a YDA delegation gave him a list of their penalised colleagues who wanted to voluntarily discharge duties during coronavirus epidemic. “But the health secretary categorically refused saying he alone was not authorised to reinstate them,” said Dr Niazi.

The YDA also asked them that the doctors who died of coronavirus during duty should be given status of “Shaheed” and their families given financial benefit.

“Another legitimate demand was to isolate the infected young doctors to either private hospitals or the five-star hotels,” he said.

He said they also demanded that the health department complete screening of all the doctors who discharged duties for seven days at hospitals as a preventive measure during epidemic.

“The YDA is using patients as a shield to get their colleagues reinstated and most people are unaware of the real face of the association,” Punjab Health Secretary Nabeel Awan told this reporter.

He said the health authorities had already taken steps to address their demands and the YDA office-bearers were aware of the fact. He alleged that the YDA men under a pre-planned move gathered at the health secretariat to blackmail the Punjab government by using coronavirus patients as a tool.

Mr Awan said he told the doctors that their demand of financial incentive was irrational and not feasible. He said the package included Rs4 million for an employee of government hospital who died of Covid-19. This package was for all employees up to BS-16 working in state-run hospitals of the province.

Similarly, Rs8 million had been allocated for those in BS-17 or above at the hospitals, he said, adding that the YDA men handed over a list of their colleagues who had been terminated during the last agitation against the MTI Act.

“As we told them that their terminations had nothing to do with the current outbreak of the Covid-19 and also that the chief minister secretariat was fully involved in the terminations at that time, the YDA men suddenly walked out and left the meeting venue,” said the health secretary.

After reaching the protest camp, they tried to storm the office and gain sympathies and then delivered provocative speeches against the health minister, Mr Awan said while calling it a move to blackmail the government.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2020