PESHAWAR, July 13: The NWFP Nurses Association has said the provincial government has failed to solve problems of nurses and announced that it will hold a protest demonstration to press for acceptance of its demands.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Thursday, association vice-president Akhtar Shah, general secretary Bakht Bibi and other office-bearers said they had called off their strike in March after getting an assurance from the government that their demands would be accepted. However, they regretted, the government did not fulfill the promise.

They said the number of beds in hospitals had been increased many times but there were only 2,000 nurses in the province.

They said that according to WHO rules, the doctor-nurse ratio should be 1:4 but in the Frontier province it was 5:1.

The association leaders demanded provision of transport facility for students and establishment of a separate directorate of nurses like other provinces.

They said nursing schools and colleges in the province should be separated from the Peshawar Health Services Academy so that nurses could continue their education in line with rules of the Pakistan Nursing Council.

They said that two years ago, then prime minister had directed to promote nurses from BPS 14 to 16 but it had not been done in the NWFP. They said Sindh, Punjab and federal governments had implemented the directive.

They said student nurses received a stipend of Rs4,100 per month in other provinces but in the NWFP, they got Rs1, 275. Because of the low salary, people were reluctant to join the profession.

They called for filling posts of nurses to meet the shortage of nurses in the province. They said 15 nursing schools in the province also needed clinical teachers. They claimed that two doctors were drawing salaries from the post of the graduate nursing college but they were not attending to their duties. They said nurses should be appointed against the posts.

They said nurses also faced accommodation problem. They said a nursing hostel in Abbottabad had been occupied by doctors and another in Hayatabad, Peshawar, had been given to students of the Khyber Girls’ Medical College.

They demanded that nurses should be provided with accommodation in the premises of their duty stations.

They said they would present their charter of demands to President Gen Pervez Musharraf on July 21 on the occasion of the national convention of nurses.

They said the NWFP required at least 10,000 staff nurses to cater to patients’ needs.