Daily Times

One of the hallmarks of the Punjab PML-N government is its failure to act on the many promises it makes. A perfect example is the way the Shahbaz Sharif government has treated the doctors community, which has gone hoarse demanding its rights and reform to the service structure in our healthcare infrastructure. On Thursday, the Young Doctors Association (YDA) set up protest sit-ins and demonstrations in various parts of Lahore and other cities in Punjab to express its displeasure at the government for being unable to fulfil the many pledges it had made to these professionals some three years ago. Not only did the doctors block some major roads of Lahore, they brought a halt to all activities in the government hospitals. Whilst it is unfair to patients to have to go through not just inconvenience but, at times, life threatening situations, one must also save some sympathy for the crying doctors who are battling against a disinterested and indifferent government.

One will remember that in 2012, the YDA doctors agitated at length for some sort of improvement in the trying conditions in which they work. They asked for better pay, regulated working hours, more facilities available to them in government-run hospitals and opportunities for promotion in the healthcare system. Many meetings took place to placate the protesting doctors back then at ministerial and secretary levels. It was decided that there would be a visible change in the service structure and that the demands the YDA had listed would see some measure of implementation. Three years have passed and nothing has changed. That sounds familiar. The Shahbaz Sharif government is earning a bad reputation for simply being unable to deliver on its pledges. There seems to be no end to the dilly-dallying around of the PML-N Punjab government, always waiting for things to turn decidedly worse before moves are made to make them better.
The doctors work an inhumane number of hours, they get paid a pittance for backbreaking work, those truly deserving are hardly ever promoted in the face of a superiority culture and the government-run hospitals provide them with precious little in terms of the development of human capital or careers. The least the Punjab government can do is allocate more money to the reform of the healthcare and service structure so that those who work in it and those who need to be treated through it can all do better. Today, the young doctors have temporarily locked down their departments, tomorrow they will go home. What will the government do then? Finally take some action? *