HYDERABAD: Members of the Young Doctors’ Asso­ci­a­tion (YDA), Hyderabad chapter, boycotted work at the Liaquat University Hospitals’ (LUH) Hydera­bad and Jamshoro branches for two hours in a token protest against the Sindh government’s failure to accept their demands.

They demanded that the government raise stipends of 250 postgraduate (PG) doctors, implement its decision to enhance paid slots of PGs and ensure payment of stipends to over 200 PGs who had been working without pay for 14 months.

They said that they would continue their protest till their demands were met and warned they could expand their protest soon.

They would ensure that emergency cover was provided at hospitals during their protest, they added.

The doctors staged rallies carrying banners and placards inscribed with their demands after boycotting work at both the hospitals from 10am to 12pm.

YDA president Dr Murad Qureshi told journalists that the Sindh chief minister had ordered raise in PGs’ stipends in Aug 2016 according to which they should have been paid Rs65,000 a month instead of Rs42,000, but they had been deprived of the raise since then.

He said the chief minister had announced increasing the number of paid slots of PGs from 265 to 500 after inaugurating an international dental conference at Liaquat University of Medi­cal and Health Sciences in October 2016, but no action had been taken since then to implement the order.

He said that over 200 PGs had been working for 14 months without pay and criticised LUMHS administration’s failure to properly present the case of PGs before the Sindh government.

He said the LUMHS administration had assured YDA office bearers that the university would arrange a meeting between YDA and the chief minister at the LUMHS’ convocation on Feb 25, but it did not fulfil the promise.

The LUMHS spokesman insisted that the university did arrange a meeting of the YDA chief with the chief minister and health secretary at the convocation, and they had assured him of resolving doctors’ issues.

Mr Qureshi said that he did meet them but for a few minutes only and they did assure him of resolvingthe problems, but the university did not arrange the meeting.  

“LUMHS pays stipends to 276 PGs. The PGs other than the 276 had submitted undertakings to the university, promising they would not claim stipends if they were awarded admissions,” said the spokesman.

“The university is regularly paying the 276 [PGs] Rs42,000 and will also pay them the raise as soon as the Sindh government releases the grant for the purpose,” he said.

He said the university was making efforts to have the number of paid slots raised.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2017