Khyber Pakhtunkhwa doctors withdraw strike call

Provincial Doctors Association (PDA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday withdrew their strike call after holding successful talks with Provincial Minister for Health Shaukat Ali Yousufzai and assurance to accept their all demands on priority basis. The decision was taken after the meeting of a delegation of PDA with minister for health in his office.
The Minister for Revenue Ali Amin Gandapur, MNA Dr Mohammad Azhar Jadoon, PDA Chairman Dr Shah Sawar Khan, Vice President Teaching Staff Association Dr Abbas Khattak, a representative Dr Hussein Afridi, Dr Waseem Khattak, Dr Ashoor Afridi of PTI, Dr Ihtesham Afridi and other office-bearers of PDA were also present on the occasion.
The delegation presented demands of the doctors' community to the minister including service structure, four-tier formula for general cadre doctors, shortage of doctors, TMOs and House Officers' problems, increase in the vacancies of senior registrars, raising the resources of TMOs and time scale promotion to doctors.
The minister health listened to all the problems of the doctors and assured them that all their problems would be solved on priority basis. He said the PTI government is sincere in solving problems of the doctor community and in this connection a high level meeting has also been convened on July 8.
He said after the meeting a joint meeting of the PDA and the health department would be held to formulate a strategy for solving problems of the doctors. The minister health approved summary for appointing 200 more TMOs and signed it. He also announced that on July 15 ad hoc doctors would be recruited to remove shortage of doctors in the hospitals.
The minister said he believed when doctors are not provided suitable working conditions they would not do their duty with confidence. He said first the working conditions of doctors would be improved and then they would be asked to provide better medical cover to the patients.
He said according to the vision of the PTI Chairman Imran Khan they would introduce revolutionary changes in the health and education sectors. He said the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is a test for the PTI leaders and when they could not deliver according to the expectations of the people then they would also be rejected like the past leaders. He said they would not follow the past rulers and would show to the people that they would bring change which would be visible to all and sundry.