Doctor moves court against weekly 102-hour work at Pakistani hospitals
In India, doctors perform 48-hour a week duties, in the west even less than that
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani doctor working in an Islamabad hospital has challenged long working hours, poor working conditions and insecurity at the government hospitals in Islamabad High Court (IHC) and moved a writ petition seeking some sort of judicial intervention relief for doctors from stressful work.
Dr Nafeesa Hiba has moved the court through her counsel Saimul Haq Satti Advocate stating that the resident doctors and house officers (fresh graduates) are required to work for 102 hours a week that is beyond human capacity.
Not only this, on alternate days they are made to work for consecutive 30 hours.
Giving example of India where doctors work 48 hours a week, Dr Hiba said one reason for Pakistani doctors seeking immigration to Canada and other countries is that in Pakistan they have to work for long hours and in return they get little reward.
In the west, the working hours are even fewer than that. Unfortunately, no such working hours schedule exists for doctors, particularly, house officers and junior doctors and sometime they have to perform duties for 24 hours without break.
Moreover, the working conditions in which they are performing their duties are far from good since they neither get proper food nor safe drinking water in the hospitals and there is no arrangement for rest or relaxation for them.
These are the main reasons for the brain drain and many lady doctors quit this profession due to workload, she submitted in her petition.
The petitioner doctor has cited the Federation of Pakistan through National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (NHSRC) Minister, Secretary NHSRC, Chief Secretaries Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Pakistan-administered Kashmir, President College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP), Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PMDC), Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) and Advocate General Islamabad as respondents.
Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb of the IHC while hearing the petition has directed the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) to file a report regarding schedule of doctors’ working hours at the federal capital’s hospitals.
The council has been directed by IHC Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb to file the report on doctors’ working hours by September.
While talking to Gulf News, spokesperson for the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Dr Waseem Khwaja admitted the house officers and the resident doctors who are appointed on rotation basis have to work for longer hours than those permanent appointees.
We are facing overwhelming number of patients at Emergency and General OPD and to cope with patient burden sometime these doctors have to cope with pressing hours of work, he said.