On Wednesday, by the time Chaudhry Sadiq was brought to the Mayo Hospital, his chest had aggravated and breathing remained difficult. But a clutch of protesting young doctors won't let him into the emergency ward. And at long last when he was taken in it was too late. He expired, leaving behind his wailing son who asked "Are these doctors or killers?" The situation in a number of government hospitals in Lahore and a number of districts in Punjab was also alarming. For better part of the week the young doctors blocked major thoroughfares, locked up OPDs and interrupted access to emergency wards in almost all districts as a protest against the Punjab Health Department's Central Induction Policy for post-graduation. They want what their colleagues have been granted in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Lahore, not only they closed OPDs in a number of government hospitals, blocked patients access to the emergency wards, but also staged a sit-in on the city's main thoroughfare, the Mall, forcing suspension of traffic and in the process earning rebuke of the general public. And quite a few nasty scenes were also witnessed when their seniors tried to force open the OPDs and emergency wards. At the Lahore General Hospital they clashed with paramedical staff and beat a retreat when trashed by the security guards. Of course, there are quite a few issues they have with the government that should have been settled by now. One can't help thinking that the provincial bureaucracy is no less guilty. But the way the Young Doctors Association goes about seeking their settlement a disturbing impression begins to emerge about the very youth that is so much the cream of our society and hope of the ailing humanity. Invariably, at the receiving end of their tempestuous mood is neither the higher bureaucracy of the province nor the elite, but the poor patient who cannot afford to go to private clinics which are better equipped, but not affordable for them.
One may say such an act as the young doctors played out in Lahore over the week earned them rebuke of the people, but having said that it is also imperative one should try figuring out why did they do that. For them there are several provocations. For one, and importantly, an efficient, smoothly functioning health sector is certainly a low priority with provincial governments, and more so ever since its devolution to them by the 18th Constitutional Amendment. It is not the first time the protesting young doctors are on the roads; they were there in July and the year before. What they demanded then were better wages and now their demand is a better service structure. If we want more specialised medical care, which we do want sometimes, then what's the problem with their demand for more seats under the Central Induction Policy for post-graduation? And then they are also comparatively underpaid. The fact cannot be denied that boys and girls who adopt for medical career are the best of the lot. But do they get what others with comparable academic record - no. Were it so you won't have so many young doctors abandoning their career and going for the Central Superior Services competition. Then there is this yawning gap of earning that has come to exist between them and their superiors, instilling in them an acute sense of deprivation. And it is no secret to them why so often machines such as those for CT scans in government hospitals become dysfunctional and patients are advised to visit private labs for expensive tests. To them a kind of mafia operates in there. One would hate to believe that the young doctors are as indifferent to the ailing humanity as they have to be. They must be talked to; their demands are not entirely outlandish. But something is missing and that is a listening mind and heart in the provincial capital, and given the low priority the health sector receives one is not sure it would be there anytime soon.
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