Pakistan : Paramedics on strike for service structure
LAHORE, Feb 6: The paramedical staff of the Services Hospital observed strike on Feb 4 to press the government for implementation of service structure for their cadre “as pledged” some six
years ago by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Non-regularisation of the service of paramedics working on daily-wage basis and the government plans to initiate projects in the public sector health facilities under public-private partnership were the other two reasons that kept the health support staff away from the outpatient department and indoor wards of the hospital, badly affecting healthcare delivery system and causing great inconvenience to the patients and their attendants throughout the day.
Addressing the protesters, Services Hospital Paramedical Staff Association leaders said the chief minister had, soon after winning the 2013 election, promised to implement service structure for them. Now the bureaucracy was depriving them of their rights by not implementing service structure, they alleged.
They alleged that the scheme to handover government schools to NGOs under the public-private-partnership policy resulted in deterioration of education sector. After ruining the education sector the bureaucracy was after the healthcare delivery system in the Punjab, they said.
They said provision of healthcare facilities at public hospitals has not been a priority for the government for the last couple of years. Instead of making investment in the healthcare delivery system, the government wanted to hand over its hospitals to the private sector which would further make the healthcare facilities inaccessible to the middle class in general and the poor in particular, they said.
The association leaders announced that the strike would be observed in other public hospitals as well if the government continued with its plan to privatise healthcare delivery system.
Published by Daily Dawn on Feb 5, 2017
