LAHORE, April 25: With the dust of young doctors’ differences with the government yet to settle, the nurses and paramedics in the state-run hospitals in Punjab are preparing themselves to launch vigorous protests for a charter of demands including service structure.

The nurses at the public-sector health facilities all over the province launched their (symbolic) agitation on Wednesday by wearing black armbands. The paramedics will kick off their protest from May 2.

The poor patients will have to face a great deal of inconvenience as the nurses and paramedics form the backbone of health institutions.

“The health department will be in trouble if around 50,000 paramedics and 23,000 nurses launch joint agitation,” a source said.

The paramedics say they want to give a ‘tough time’ to the Punjab government as is evident from their phase-wise schedule of agitation, which consists of hunger strike camps, token strike, black day and province-wide complete strike at the public-sector hospitals.

They also warn of closing constant care units during the first phase of the agitation.

The representatives of two rival paramedic groups have formed Punjab Paramedics Alliance Class-IV by merging their associations -- Punjab Paramedical Alliance and Paramedical Staff Action Committee Class-IV.

PPA chairman Malik Munir Ahmad and PSACC Secretary-General Rehmat Sindhu confirmed the development, saying a decision has been taken to launch protest campaign to press the government for acceptance of their demands.

“We are going to launch agitation from the platform of PPAC to point out double standards of the health authorities who pay heed to doctors’ grievances only,” Sindhu said.

“All paramedics working in public-sector hospitals in the province have been conveyed message to join four-day hunger strike camp outside the Lahore Press Club from May 2. On May 6, the protest will be extended to the division level by setting up hunger strike camps outside the district headquarters hospitals.

“From May 7 to May 11 the paramedics will observe token strike for two hours from 8am to 10am daily at the state-run hospitals,” he said.

Sindhu said it had been decided to observe May 12 as black day.

“Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had promised on May 12 last year to bring the paramedics under a service structure and regularise the contract employees but the promise is yet to be fulfilled,” he said.

In case their demands were not met, he said, the paramedics would close the indoor and outdoor departments initially for a period of two weeks.

“We also have some other options which we will reveal later,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Young Nursing Association (YNA) has also called meeting of its general body on Saturday.

An insider said the YNA was perturbed over the double standards of the health department officials towards resolving their demands like service structure, promotion matters and creation of more posts.

“After the last agitation of the nurses on The Mall, we have been regularly attending meetings with the health authorities to streamline the service structure and promotion matters,” a YNA office-bearer said.

She said everything was going on smoothly but suddenly the health department took a U-turn and announced departmental promotion committee (DPC) for the promotion of 18 to 19 grade nurses of teaching cadre only. It not only ignored promotion cases of the nurses belonging to clinical cadre but also finalised cases of teaching cadre nurses on the basis of the seniority list which was prepared in accordance with the 1986 service structure.

She said the YNA lodged protest before the Punjab Nursing Director-General who asked them to meet chief minister’s adviser on health Khwaja Salman Rafique who further asked them to contact special secretary health Dawood Khan Bareach on the issue of promotion cases.

The YNA leader said when they contacted Mr Bareach, he asked them to visit his office on April 24. As they were planning to visit his office, the DPC finalised the promotion cases on April 23 in violation of the promises made to the YNA leaders, she said.

This act sent a wave of shock among the nurses who later decided to protest the health department’s hypocrisy.

YNA Vice-President Shahnaz Akhtar said the association had called its general body meeting. She alleged that the health department was trying to divide nurses in groups as was evident from the April 23 DPC meeting in which the nurses belonging to clinical cadre were ignored while the cases of teaching cadre were finalised.