PESHAWAR: Doctors here have demanded of the government to fulfil the requirement of medical staff within a month to overcome the problems being faced by them in the public sector hospitals in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking at a joint press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, Pakistan Islamic Medical Association’s Peshawar district president Dr Hazrat Akbar and Young Doctors Association provincial president Dr Rizwan Kundi said that the government had announced to induct 1,300 new doctors to meet the needs of growing number of patients, but the appointments could not be made as yet.

They said the public sector hospitals also needed specialist doctors, but the government was least bothered to provide the opportunity to young doctors for specialisation.

They said the Postgraduate Medical Institute was meant to initiate the induction twice a year, but the government was not taking interest to fulfil the requirement.

Dr Kundi said many doctors and other staff had suffered due to coronavirus and the ultimate sufferers were the patients in the hospitals. He said the government was not serious to take effective steps for improvement of the healthcare system in the province and as a result the existing medical staff would be unable to meet the patients’ needs.

He said the government had given unlimited powers to Nowsherwan Burki, but he was not available to take notice of growing problems in the wake of coronavirus pandemic. He alleged that the government had started exploitation of doctors to acquire their services on daily wage basis.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2020