KARACHI (The Thursday Times) — Doctors suspended outpatient services at public and private hospitals and shut private clinics across Pakistan on Monday, the Pakistan Medical Association said, in a two-day strike against tax raids on clinics and criminal cases filed against doctors.
Emergency departments stayed open. The association said the action followed directions from its central leadership and a resolution adopted by doctors on October 29, and urged hospitals and professional bodies to support the shutdown, which medical leaders had called for November 1 and 2.
The dispute centres on the Federal Board of Revenue’s drive to make private clinics install point of sale systems, and on what doctors call a growing number of police cases against them after patients die or suffer complications.
“A doctor’s clinic is a place of healing, not a supermarket checkout counter,” PMA Centre President Dr Izhar Ahmed Chaudhary said at a news conference in Karachi last week, attended by the Young Doctors’ Association, the Private Hospital and Clinics Association of Pakistan and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Pakistan. He said raids on medical facilities treated doctors like tax evaders and created an environment of intimidation.
PMA Centre Secretary General Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro said tragic outcomes that often stemmed from a lack of basic medicines, delayed hospital arrivals or severe shortages were being met with police cases under Sections 302 and 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code. “Every death weighs heavily on a doctor’s conscience,” he said. He also argued that every added administrative burden on a clinic pushes up the cost of treatment for patients.
What the doctors want
The medical bodies are demanding an immediate halt to the raids and to direct police cases against doctors. They want no legal action to proceed without prior evaluation by a certified, independent medical board, a Healthcare Professionals Protection Act from parliament, and institutional, legal and physical security at medical facilities.
The association held a one-day strike over the same point of sale policy on September 30. Its leaders said the next steps, which could include a nationwide protest movement, would be decided at a PMA Central Council meeting on November 28.
