Police target doctors over strike action in Pakistan

Abstract

Police in Punjab—Pakistan’s most populous state—raided several hostels and hospitals last week, arresting, attacking, and humiliating hundreds of young doctors as the provincial government attempted to stop a strike called by Young Doctor’s Association (YDA) as it entered its third week. The YDA in Punjab has been demanding revisions to service rules by holding protests and token strikes for more than a year. Their proposed revisions include a fairer promotion scale for doctors and an increase in the non-practising health allowance and stipends of postgraduate trainees. In 2011, the young doctors got their pay scales revised after a nationwide 37-day protest and the Punjab Government also then pledged to revise the service structure. However, now the government says that there is no budget to fulfi l the requirements and it has been keen to break the strike while not wanting to meet the demand of the protesters. During the strike, doctors had been providing emergency services until the police raids last week, which led to walk outs in emergency and inpatient services. Tariq Naseem, a YDA member from Mayo Hospital, Lahore, which is one of the hospitals from which the strike initiated, said: “The government is using police to force us to come to hospital without responding to our demands, many of my colleagues are in jail, three of them are in [the] Intensive Care Unit, one is even on the ventilator.” Photographs seen by The Lancet taken by several sources showed plaster casts on the limbs of some of the strikers and clear cut abrasion marks on the backs of others. Female doctors on strike were also seen being beaten by male police offi cers in these images. Ambreen Zaidi, the former president of YDA, Civil Hospital Karachi, and the General Council Member of YDA Sindh said, “Doctors have been forced to vacate their hostels, homes, and work places, beaten by the police and bashed by the media. Their phones are being tapped and channels of communication are blocked so that the truth does not come out in front of the public.”