Punjab govt doctors call off strike, to resume OPD duties from Monday
After state health minister assures protesting doctors of fulfilling their demands in time-bound manner, PCMSA announces OPD timings extended by two hours on Monday and Tuesday to compensate for inconvenience to patients.
Punjab Civil Medical Services (PCMS) doctors, who had suspended OPD services since September 9, on Saturday announced that they would be resuming duties from Monday. The announcement came after a meeting with Punjab health minister Dr Balbir Singh, who is learnt to have assured them that their demands would be implemented in a time-bound manner.
The Punjab Civil Medical Services Association (PCMSA) said that 2,500 doctors would compensate for the inconvenience of patients owing to the suspension of OPD services for five days by putting in two extra hours on Monday and Tuesday. The OPD timings of health centres in Punjab is from 8am to 2pm.
PCMSA president Dr Akhil Sarin said the government had assured the doctors it would fulfil all demands in a time-bound manner.
The demands include reinstatement of the assured career progression (ACP) scheme that ensures financial benefits and a higher pay scale to government employees, better security for healthcare workers, timely recruitment of medical officers (MOs) and release of pending central pay commission (CPC) arrears.
The PCMSA president said that the government would come out with concrete steps to improve security measures at all health centres. “Around ₹12 crore for installation of CCTVs has already been issued to the health department. Next week, the Department will come up with the framework to improve security measures, including fixing the number of security guards based on the number of hospital beds,” Dr Sarin said.
Asked about the demand of recruitment of more doctors to overcome staff shortage, he said, “The government is in the process of hiring 400 medical officers, while more doctors will be recruited by the year-end.”
“The health minister has assured that ACP, which had been discontinued, will be restored in the coming weeks,” he added.