Young doctors in Peshawar staged a sit-in outside the KP health secretary’s office, demanding a salary increase after saying their pay has remained unchanged since 2016. The protesters said they would continue the camp until their demands are accepted.
PESHAWAR: Young doctors from across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa set up a protest camp outside the office of the provincial health secretary on Monday, saying their salaries had not been increased since 2016 and demanding a raise.
A large number of doctors gathered at the Provincial Health Secretariat for the sit-in, with convoys continuing to arrive from Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, the Hazara region and other districts of the province. As more groups joined the protest, the parking area outside the health secretary’s office became congested and inaccessible.
The demonstrators said they would continue their camp outside the office until their demands were accepted. They arranged tents, bedding and food supplies for the protest, which also disrupted routine work at the secretariat as slogan-chanting continued through the day. Police were deployed at the site to prevent any untoward incident.
The health secretary remained inside his office while the protest continued outside. The gathering turned the secretariat premises into a charged protest site as doctors from different areas joined in succession.
Doctors seek salary increase
Speaking to the media, Young Doctors Association provincial president Dr Isfandyar said existing pay had become unsustainable amid inflation and urged the government to revise salaries upward.
He said the doctors were seeking a full doubling of salaries but also called on the government to approve at least a partial increase in view of the economic situation and the nature of their work.”While our demand is a 100 per cent increase in salaries, the government should, considering economic difficulties and the hard duty performed by doctors, raise salaries by at least 50 per cent,”
The protest remained under way outside the Provincial Health Secretariat, with doctors maintaining that they would not end the sit-in until their demands were met.
