Hundreds of young doctors working in the government hospitals across the Punjab continued their three week long strike on Monday despite government's assurance to raise their salaries from July 2010. A Health Department spokesman told Business Recorder here on Monday that a delegation of Young Doctors' Association YDA met with the Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan to press for their demands.
He said the delegation also had another meeting with the Secretary Health Fawad Hassan who reassured the delegation that the government had decided in principle to increase the salary package for the doctors' community from July 1. The recommendations for the said reasonable increased salary package would be finalised by the mid of May, this year.
The YDA delegation demanded that the young doctors' salary should be increased to Rs 80,000 per month whereas monthly salaries of the professors should be enhanced to Rs 3,00,000. The spokesman said that Punjab government was paying Rs 22, 500 per month to each post-graduate doctor whereas those working in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa hospitals were getting only Rs 14,000 per month.
Secretary health told the TDA delegation that the provincial government needs an additional budget of Rs 38 billion to meet the YDA's demand which were not available in the government's kitty for 2010-2011, "The medical community should just wait for six to seven weeks when the government will be in a position to make sector-wise allocations in the light of the available resources for the next years budget. Therefore, there were no moral grounds left for strike after clear cut assurance about salary increase from higher authorities" Fawad added.