CHITRAL: A strike by young doctors continued for the second day at the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital on Monday, creating problems for patients,e specially those coming from far-off areas.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Doctors Council (KPDC) gave the province-wide strike call last week after police failed to register a case against the provincial health minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan and his security guards for thrashing an assistant professor at Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar.
The office-bearers of Young Doctors Association (YDA) in Chitral on Monday said keeping in view the hardship of patients they were providing service at the OPD and emergency of the hospital during their strike.
They said the doctors in the province took the extreme step of observing strike after the government did not listen to their reservations. They said the government was bringing a law to form district and regional health authorities under which there was a possibility that all hospitals and health centres would be handed over to the private sector.
The doctors said the government was introducing the law without taking the doctors community on board and without making the content of the Act public.
They said the so-called reforms in the health sector were introduced by the PTI during its previous tenure due to which the sector was being ruined with access to treatment for the citizens becoming costlier.
The doctors also demanded that a case should be registered against the health minister and his guards for thrashing the professor. The doctors also said the strike would continue their acceptance of their demands.
Reporting: Syed Nazir Hussain Shah