The young doctors Association finally called off its 36 days old strike after a meeting of its representatives with the Chief Minister Punjab on 8th April, who has constituted a six member committee mandated to look into the demands of the doctors regarding their salaries and service structure and to submit its recommendations within two weeks.
The most unfortunate and sordid aspect of this prolonged stand off between the striking doctors and Punjab government is that 200 human lives were lost in different hospitals of the province due to the non-availability of the doctors. It is really mind boggling why the Chief Minister and his government that prides itself on their self proclaimed good governance in the province, remained criminally indifferent to the suffering humanity and allowed the situation to develop into a crisis that was avoidable?
Another astonishing and noteworthy thing is that while the Chief Minister assured the doctors that all their demands will be met, he did not even bother to say a few words of sympathy for the bereaved families or made an announcement to institute an inquiry for fixing the responsibility for those unfortunate deaths. Thanks to the Chief Justice Lahore High Court for ordering the formation of a commission to fix the responsibility for those deaths; a task that should have been performed by the Chief Minister.
There are no two opinions about the fact that the situation has been mishandled by a mindless bureaucracy and a political leadership lacking foresight and vision. The CM should have taken charge of the situation the moment it surfaced. By allowing the bureaucracy to use its high-handed machinations and unimaginative approach to the problem that demanded compassionate response from the government and the political leadership, the provincial government has exhibited callousness of the first order. For thirty six days it remained oblivious to the plight of the suffering patients and made no serious attempt to defuse the situation. Reaching out to the striking doctors by the political leadership and lending a patient hearing to their demands was all that was required to avert the brewing crisis. Another pertinent point to be made is that it was not a sudden eruption like a volcano; it was a building crisis that raised its ugly head the way it did due to the apathy of the health administration of the province to the long outstanding demands of the doctors which were never seriously considered.
In a democratic set up it is the political leadership that guides the bureaucracy in regards to matters relating to governance, but in this situation the bureaucracy seems to have been calling the shots. The strategy of coercion, dismissals and threats simply failed and instead precipitated the crisis at the peril of 200 human lives. That is simply unacceptable in a civilised society. The contention of the provincial government that it did not have the resources to meet the demands of the doctors has some logic but it did not mean that the demands of the doctors should have been spurned at the outset. The right strategy would have been to engage the representatives of the doctors in a dialogue and explained the ground realities to them. They would surely have shown understanding of the situation and the matter would have been resolved on give and take basis amicably without causing so much misery and inconvenience to the general public who rightly expect their elected representatives to work for promoting their welfare.
In contrast to the Punjab government, the federal government has shown greater imagination and vision in dealing with the young doctors in the federal capital thus forestalling the possibility of disruption in the health services to the public. An understanding has been reached between the doctors and the health ministry. The federal government is also facing a financial crunch but it has not shied away from its responsibility to deal with the emerging issues which is a hall mark of governance by the people's representatives. Good governance is all about promoting welfare of the people and responding positively and promptly to the problems related to governance.
Doctors are a special breed and need to be treated accordingly. There is no doubt about the fact that their working environment, pay packages and other perks are not commensurate with the enormity of their responsibilities and the amount of work that they have to perform during their duty hours. In some cases they are on call round the clock. We are already experiencing a continuous exodus of doctors from the country for better prospects abroad. According to reliable sources 4000 doctors left the country last year and another 2000 are likely to leave the Pakistani shores in the near future; not an enviable situation for a country that desperately needs their services to raise the standard and extent of health cover to its teeming millions. Let us concede ungrudgingly that doctors are a patriotic community and would very much like to serve in Pakistan provided their career prospects and salaries are adequate enough and favourably comparable to the professionals in the other fields of the national activity. It does not necessarily have to be at par with the developed countries. The things can be sorted out by taking all the stakeholders into confidence and dealing with them as respectable citizens and not the way they have been handled in Punjab. The crisis in Punjab is simply attributable to the failure of the political leadership. The politicians will have to take charge and use the bureaucracy as an implementing organ for the decisions and policies given by them instead of abdicating this responsibility to the latter as we have witnessed during the doctors strike in Punjab.