Young Doctor Association denies calling off strike

After successful negotiations with the Punjab government, the Young Doctor Association (YDA) has called off its strike, claimed Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah.

Speaking to the media, the provincial minister informed that the cases against doctors have been withdrawn and all those arrested will be freed. However, the office-bearers of the YDA contradicted the information, saying that they didn’t call off the strike.

A spokesperson of the association said, “When our fellow doctors return to homes from jails, and cases against them are withdrawn, we will resume our services at Emergency Wards in hospitals”.

He, however, clarified that the strike at OPDs and Indoor Departments will continue till the implementation of the service structure.

Earlier, Chief Minister Punjab held a meeting with principles of medical colleges and senior doctors and discussed the situation caused by the strike.

Besides reviewing the healthcare situation in the province, the meeting discussed the demands of the YDA in detail.

Despite the provincial government called on Army Medical Corps (AMC) to operate the Outdoor Patient Departments (OPDs) and Emergency Departments, there has still been a deficiency of doctors in the province.

According to the official data, there are 7000 young doctors in Lahore out of which just 370 were working in the provincial hospitals. The remaining doctors were either had gone underground or not coming to work.

Although some 125 new doctors had taken charges of their duties while 90 doctors form the AMC were also performing their duties, the situation is far from satisfactory.

According to a senior official in the health department the routine operations in teaching hospitals had also been cancelled and patients were being put on the waiting list.

He noted, “The makeshift arrangements are somehow running the system but this cannot last for long. The working doctors are overloaded and would exhaust if they have to work like this for several days”.

The strike by YDA drew mixed reactions of the people from across the country. A large section of the society criticized the doctors for making the lives of people miserable.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jul 5 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.