‘Lack of transparency’ in Sehat card: Doctors suspend health services at hospitals in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: The doctors continued their protest on the second consecutive day on Friday suspending health services in the public sector hospitals in the provincial capital against what they called “lack of transparency” in the Sehat Sahulat Card programme and termination of a doctor in the Lady Reading Hospital.

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) had given the strike call in the public sector hospitals. They warned to extend their protest to the peripheries, including the district headquarters hospitals, from Monday if their demands were not accepted.

The protesting doctors started their agitation in the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and forcibly suspended services in the outpatient departments (OPDs).

A large number of patients had come from different places to the hospitals and were waiting in long queues for getting OPD chits.

Computer operators and clerical workers, who are not part of the doctors associations, were also not available on their seats.

During the protest, senior consultants avoided attending OPDs in the hospitals. Health Minister Taimur Jhagra later took notice of the issue and approached the HMC administration to restore services.

The hospital administration later resumed services in the OPDs.

The health minister asked the doctors to focus on their basic responsibilities of serving their patients and leave the politics to the politicians.

In Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), the protesting doctors were quite aggressive and kept the OPDs suspended for a few hours.

“Some of the doctors later returned to OPDs but since it was Friday most of the patients had gone when they saw the doctors were on strike. There was no one in the hospital to have engaged the protesting doctors and some of the doctors left the hospital while others were sitting in their offices,” an official of the hospital said.He said some of the doctors later returned to OPDs but the patients had already left.

Dr Faisal Barakzai, YDA spokesman, said they didn’t want to suspend OPD services as they were aware it would cause sufferings to patients. He said they had utilised other means to peacefully resolve issues but it didn’t help.

He accused the LRH administration of terminating Dr Kiramat, a trainee medical officer, working at the Plastic Surgery Department without any solid reasons.

Dr Barakzai said the doctors in LRH a few weeks ago had staged a sit-in against their eviction from doctors’ hostel and were spending the nights in the open in front of the hospital. He added that one of the TMOs Dr Kiramat spoke to a television channel and criticised the hospital administration when media people visited them.

According to Dr Barakzai, the LRH administration terminated him without any inquiry or fulfilling rules and regulations. He said the hospital administration did not issue a show-cause notice and straightaway issued his termination orders.

He said they had demanded that the hospital administration should implement findings of the inquiry committee against the associate hospital director, Tariq Burki and provost Jamil Shah.

“The hospital had itself initiated inquiries and formed a committee to probe allegations levelled against Tariq Burki and Jamil Shah. But no action was taken against them,” he explained. Dr Barakzai said that YDA had been calling for a third party audit of the Sehat Sahulat Card programme in which billions of rupees were being spent in the name of free health services.

“We have been raising issues in the Sehat Sahulat Card programme and highlighting misuse of the public resources in the name of free services. Il-equipped health centres lacking basic facilities have been registered in the Sehat card programme where trained doctors are not available and patients are being operated on by unskilled people and substandard medicines are given to them,” the YDA leader said.

Mohammad Asim, LRH media manager, rejected Dr Barakzai’s version and termed it baseless allegations.

He said the hospital administration had allotted the hostel to female TMOs as it was close to the hospital. “Each of the TMO is paid Rs15,000 as rent and they can live anywhere but the female doctors had accommodation issues so the hospital administration decided to give the hostel to them,” he argued.

Asim said he was invited to a talk show on a local television channel where TMO Dr Kiramat was sitting with him and he used harsh language against the LRH, its administration and particularly Dr Nausherwan Burki, chairman BoG, and also raised certain issues in the Sehat Sahulat card programme.