The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to take legal action against striking doctors in the province. Chairing a meeting, provincial health minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan directed the top officials of the government hospitals in the province to initiate action against absent doctors under Essential Service Act.
Doctors' community in the Medical Teaching Institutes (MTIs) are on strike and boycotting the Out-Door Patients Department (OPD) of the major hospitals. The patients coming from far-flung areas were facing difficulties and left with the option of moving to private clinics.
He said that if doctors were not ready to perform their duties, then they should opt for another job. He said that the PTI government and he was responsible to the people. He ordered that all facilities should be provided to the people in hospitals.
The provincial minister clarified that there was no plan for privatization of the hospitals, but only reforms would be implemented in the government hospitals. He said that health reforms were on agenda of the PTI government. "Such dramas would not work in new Pakistan," he said.
Hisham Khan said that the doctors would not be allowed to indulge in politics. He said that the doctors were involved in propaganda only to save themselves from transfers.
He said that the government would not allow few trouble makers to take law into their hands. He said that if the doctors wanted to do politics, then they should resign.
The issue of the striking doctors was also raised on the floor of the leader of opposition in KP Assembly, Akram Khan Durrani and asked the government to adopt reconciliatory way to address issues of doctors and termed them assets owing to their job description.
He said if senior doctors would resign due to policies of government in health sector the miseries of people would aggravate. Advising the government to avoid further experiments in health sector, he said that KP people and province was not in a position to endure such experiments.
However, the Provincial Minister for Tourism, Youth Affairs, Atif Khan Thursday vociferously defended the Medical Teaching Institutions Act (MTI) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and said the reforms introduced under the act was meant to improve service delivery in health sector and facilitate ailing community.
He said the public were not satisfied with the performance of health sector during the tenures of past governments of Pakistan People Party, Mutahidda Majlis Amal and Awami National Party in the province.
Atif said the government was trying to streamline the health sector aiming benefit of people and to end the monopoly of certain doctors. He said the provincial government had also facilitated doctors serving in remote areas while plan to extend Health Card to entire population of the province was being considered for incorporation in upcoming budget.
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