SHIKARPUR: Doctors, paramedics and nurses continued their boycott of work at outpatient departments (OPDs) in several government hospitals across the province on Saturday to force the authorities to accept their demands.

They had begun the agitation under Grand Health Alliance — a joint platform of doctors, paramedics and nurses — with two-hour daily boycott of OPDs from June 8 to 10 and then extended it to full day protest from June 11.

At the RBUT Civil Hospital in Shikarpur, the strikers gathered outside main gate of the facility and demanded Sindh government accept their “genuine” demands at the earliest to end unrest among healthcare providers.

They warned they would continue the full-day boycott of OPDs if their charter of demands was not accepted.

The alliance’s charter of demands submitted to the government on June 1 included high-risk allowance, provision of personal protective equipment to healthcare providers, time scale and promotions, regularisation of the remaining 58 Gavi vaccinators out of 700 (648 had been regularised) and free healthcare facility for Covid-19 affected staff in government and private hospitals.

The strike was also observed in government hospitals in four talukas of the district.

MIRPURKHAS: Striking doctors, paramedics and nurses gathered on the premises of Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital after boycotting OPDs and raised slogans in support of their demands.

The protesters’ leaders deplored that the government had not yet accepted their charter of demands despite the fact that they were doing high-risk job without surgical masks, safety kits, gloves, sanitizers and high-risk allowance.

SUKKUR: Young Doctors Association continued boycott of OPDs and token hunger strike for three hours at Jacobabad Civil Hospital, demanding payment of high-risk allowance, provision of security and separate isolation ward for infected doctors and other healthcare staff.

The association’s leaders warned the chief minister and health minister to accept their genuine demands at the earliest, or else they would continue the boycott.

PMA distances itself from strike

HYDERABAD: Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has urged the Sindh government to provide PPE to doctors but distanced itself from the protesting healthcare providers, saying the association did not believe in strikes.

PMA president Dr Agha Taj Mohammad, general secretary Dr Mohammad Zaman Baloch and other office-bearers said in a joint statement issued on Saturday that instead of saluting doctors the Sindh government should take concrete steps to resolve their problems.

They said that doctors and other staff working at healthcare facilities run by Peoples’ Primary Healthcare Initiative and universities should be provided high-risk allowance.

They demanded judicial probe into the death of Dr Shafqat Shaikh and said shuhada allowance be paid to heirs of doctors who had died of coronavirus. PPE should be provided to postgraduates, house officers and doctors serving in basic health units, rural health centres and teaching and non-teaching civil hospitals, they said.

They said that family members of Covid-19 affected doctors should be kept in separate isolation wards. A private hospital had been given billions of rupees funds, which could have been used for building a new hospital, they said.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2020