Pakistani Doctor's Strike: Hit Home

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

I was thinking of writing about the strike of the pakistani doctors just recently----I wanted to write that the doctor leaders behind this strike should be summarily executed and hanged---.

I took too much time---just felt the pain and didnot write anything----till about a couple of hours ago when it hit close to home---very close---.

I was visitng my sister this evening and my mother mentioned that one of my first cousins suffered n attack of extremely high blood pressure----there were no doctors available to see her to prescribe any medication---because they were on strike---she died the same day of brain hemorrhage.

In soviet union and china---these doctors would have been executed by the firing squad---in the u s fo a---they would have faced jail sentence for dereliction of duty---in the lawless lands of pakistan---nobody gives a sh-it----because they are ready building the c41 systems to counter other enemies---but don't know how to fix the malaise that is effecting the nation.

I feel sad for my little cousin sister---she had lived a very hard life---as a young child she developed an abcess on her hip---her mother and my aunt was careless----it grew so big that it ate up a lots of flesh---my aunt could have informed my father or other of her cousins who were doctors but no---thick headed that she was---a true pakistani my aunt---my cousin---she walked with a severe limp all her life---in the end---she just could not even get the basic medical service to save her life----.

The world so harsh to her right from childhood to the day she died----for a female---to live with a limp in a pakistani society is a battle in itself---even in an educated family.

 

[zimmick]

Mate, We have also witnessed strike like these India. We Don't Human Life & Doctor's First Priority Is to Save the Life Of A Patient but now there Priority Is Money. I Hope, we start valuing Human Life. The Person Who Lose his Dear One, Only knows what he goes through and not the doctors..

 

[Jango]

These doctors can be charged for attempted murder by law, for refusing to administer proper care on a patient. And that is what should be done.

Some of the demands are legitimate, but closing OPD is no way to mke sure your demands go through. Mr Shahbaz decided to play angry drug lord, and started to order raids on hostels and severe beating of doctors, and then doctors close emergency and indoors. These doctors should have been locked up rather than being beaten.

Mind you not all doctors want to be on strike. My cousin was sitting at the emergency treating a patient, when all if a sudden a few thug looking doctors come in shouting 'doctors! Leave the emerggency immediately'. And all the doctors left their patients just like that, took out the drips and blood line and just ran.

These same chaps take a Shahbaz Sharif laptop and then refuse to work for him at the sametime. Double standards eh?

Both the parties totally failed on this issue.

BTW, haven't doctors come back now since the court order?

 

[MastanKhan]

Hi,

Removing the drips and blood lines is tantamount to murder----they should have been hanged by the telephone poles outside the hospitals---then we would have seen how many would go on a strike---.

 

[45'22']

sorry to hear that
strike of doctors is ok but they shouldnt act like this when a patient's life is at stake
hope this doesnt happen again with someone else

 

[harpoon]

Fire all doctors and recruit new ones with an iron clad contract.

 

[KRAIT]

Fire all doctors and recruit new ones with an iron clad contract.

Worst idea.........

 

[harpoon]

sorry to hear that
strike of doctors is ok but they shouldnt act like this when a patient's life is at stake
hope this doesnt happen again with someone else

Its also happens in India..remember the strikes by doctors in Rajasthan which killed around 40+ patients. Doctors in Kerala also go on strike frequently.

Worst idea.........

Well the doctor's who don't value the life of his/her patients don't deserve to be doctors in the first place.

 

[VCheng]

from: In defence of young doctors - Dr Narmeen A Hamid

In defence of young doctors

Dr Narmeen A Hamid
Wednesday, July 04, 2012 From Print Edition


The issue of the young doctor’s strike is the latest in the string of crises that seem to hit the health system in Punjab with worrying regularity.

This time there is a three-way tie between the government, the young doctors and the poor patients. While the patients retain their unchanging position as the hapless victims, the villain this time, in a change from established pattern, is not the government but the doctors, who are being painted by the government and the media as greedy and cold-blooded. Messiahs turned killers.

At the risk of being on the wrong side of popular opinion, I would like to speak up for the young doctors. Better still, let me try and not take sides at all but instead look dispassionately and objectively at the issue.

Some facts: Punjab currently has no written health policy document. The Punjab government spends around 0.5 percent of its GDP on health, which is very low considering that the average expenditure for all low- and middle-income countries is roughly two percent of GDP. The government lacks the capacity to even spend the budget that is allocated.

For the past two years, the actual expenditure has been less than 75 percent of the budgeted amount. Moreover despite the fact that big hospitals and specialised services get the bulk of the resources, the crises repeatedly hit the big cities. It should also be noted that only 20 percent of health care is provided by the government, while the rest is provided by the private sector, yet the quality of care at government hospitals has progressively deteriorated.

The demand for a service structure for health professionals is totally legitimate and one that is long-standing. Radical restructuring of the health system is required and not cosmetic gestures. Instead the health system is in a shambles and all we get are attractive slogans of mobile health units, free dialysis, air-conditioning in major hospitals (though how that is working without electricity is another question), free parking etc.

Our health indicators are amongst the worst in the world and falling. Pakistan may soon be the only country in the world that still has polio, and yes the virus has been detected in Lahore as well. So clearly the government is failing in its constitutional role of providing health care to all its citizens.

What about the doctors? With the decline of the rest of the society, the standard of medical education and ethics has deteriorated as well. As the public health system has collapsed, the private sector has begun to mushroom, and it has grown unregulated, exponentially and at the cost of the public sector almost like a parasite.

Health has become a business and a very lucrative one at that. Senior government doctors have all got roaring private practices where they fleece the patients without mercy. Labs and the pharmaceutical industry are all part of an exploitative netwrok. Those who cannot become or choose not to become part of the racket, leave. Doctors are leaving Pakistan literally in droves.

But the young doctors are a different breed. In a country severely lacking in heroes, if I had to vote for someone, it would be the young doctors. The only reason the government health sector is limping along is because of these foot soldiers of the medical profession.

The brightest of the students, with the highest merit opt for this field. Still young and idealistic, they go through one of the most tough and demanding academic course, at the end of which, and unlike other professions, they find themselves at the bottom-most rung of a long ad difficult career.

They look forward to progressively harder exams not to mention extremely long and punishing hours of duty, a duty which is not just physically and mentally rigorous but emotionally taxing as well because they have to deal continuously with sickness, misery and pain.

They are the ones who choose to stay and serve. They are the ones on duty when the senior doctors are at their private clinics.

They are the ones who are holding hands, taking histories, helping from their own pockets, staying up all night, even singing lullabies to babies in the nurseries (I know because I’ve seen it). They are the ones running from pillar to post arranging blood, medicines, referrals, ambulances when their patients can’t afford them.

As for the patients not being attended to, I can bet anything that even without a strike, if the media were to go to any public hospital, they would find patients complaining of absent doctors, bad attitudes, unavailability of medicines, long queues and hospital lower staff asking for bribe for the simplest of things.

The media should not fall for the cheap tactic of feeding on misery and creating a false impression. The poor patient in Pakistan is suffering, at the hands of poverty, loadshedding, illiteracy, lack of transport, high prices of drugs, poor sanitation systems, unregulated private health care and so much else.

Let’s not put all the blame on young doctors just because it provides an issue to raise ratings or it is politically expedient. I would urge some basic research and objectivity.

Out-patient departments are for walk-in patients. Any able administrator should be able to juggle senior doctor’s schedules and cover OPDs. Emergencies and wards are still working and the young doctors are continuing to do their duties where lives are endangered. There would be no crisis if the government could learn to manage...anything.

You cannot call doctors messiahs, and treat them like criminals – raiding their hostels and arresting them. You have to treat them with the dignity and respect that their title deserves before expecting them to behave like messiahs.

 

[Areesh]

from: In defence of young doctors - Dr Narmeen A Hamid

Start from hanging Dr Narmeen A Hamid. Only then these doctors will learn a lesson they will never forget.

 

[VCheng]

Start from hanging Dr Narmeen A Hamid. Only then these doctors will learn a lesson they will never forget.

Firstly, she is not a junior doctor, and secondly, why should expressing one's opinion lead to such a sanction?

How about trying to refute the points raised by her?

 

[Patriot]

Doctors at least in Pakistan act like drug dealers.They only care about money.**** them.Few of these YDA guys should be shot dead by a firing squad...that would solve the entire problem.

 

[Pukhtoon]

I am all against these bloody murderers. What they care about is just money.
There is no rule for them and for all those medicine companies in Pakistan.They will prescribe only those medics to a patient which benefit them.Which give them money .. or anything for their clinic or give them a ticket of a Europien country. Else look at their fee if you go to a hospital they will openly tells you come to my clinic today or tomorrow. They will tell you go do a test in flan Laboratory just for their %. Govt should take strict action against them and make a rule like China or Russia for them.

 

[Imran Khan]

its pakistan human life is cheap then ant .for more info watch daily news

 

[scorpionx]

This is a problem in India too. doctor's strike is a very common thing. Apart from that in my area there is a super speciality hospital which often denies to release the dead body to its families if not fully paid. Once this hospital, put a dead body in ventilator for three days and claimed 1.5lakh additional from its family. Problem is the local administration keeps their eyes shut everytime.