LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Services Hospital chapter has threatened to shut down the indoor and outdoor services at all the government hospitals of Punjab if its demand of issuance of house job certificates to 107 medic of private hospitals is not accepted.

The YDA issued the warning on Tuesday in the backdrop of its confrontation with the Services Hospital’s medical superintendent (MS) over the latter’s refusal to grant house job completion certificates to 107 doctors of the private hospitals.

The MS had declared the house job of these medics illegal, and in violation of the laid down policy, saying that the YDA members, in connivance with some medical professors, got these medics inducted for house job against merit.

Talking to the media, YDA leaders boasted of getting transferred as many as 10 former medical superintendents of the hospital, and the current MS would also meet the same fate, as they were planning to expand the scope of agitation to the entire province.

They claimed that no one could survive without the YDA’s support in the Services Hospital.

The YDA leaders alleged the MS had carried out the recent renovation project at the hospital without initiating the tendering process.

They regretted that the doctors removed from their jobs from the Government Kot Khwaja Saeed Hospital were yet not reinstated, while the private guards of the Services Hospital were not paid salaries for the last three months.On the other hand, Services Hospital MS Dr Munir Ahmad Malik termed the YDA members “a bunch of blackmailers”, alleging they were deliberately twisting the issue of house job certificates to use it as a weapon against him.

He said it was an old tactic of a few YDA member of the hospital to receive money from junior medics for their illegal induction for PG training and house jobs in the Services Hospital.

“I will not tolerate [such tactics], nor surrender before the blackmailers of the YDA who were bringing a bad name to the medical profession for money,” the MS said.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2024