KARACHI-A large number of doctors and paramedics on Tuesday staged a protest outside Sindh Secretariat in Karachi demanding payment of health risk allowance and other benefits.
It has been more than three weeks that the medics and paramedics of Sindh are on the roads seeking fulfillment of their demands.
The protesters chanted slogans against Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho. The protesters have boycotted OPDs, operation theaters and wards in public hospitals across Sindh owing to which the patients were facing extreme difficulties.
Grand Health Alliance (GHA) has demanded the government to pay them health risk allowance and other benefits.
GHA also announced that the demonstration will continue until their demands were fulfilled.
After calling off the protest outside the secretariat, the medics and paramedics from across Sindh have headed towards the Karachi Press Club where they would stage a sit-in. A large of lady health workers will also join them.
Paramedics boycott OPD treatments in govt hospitals due to strike
Paramedical staff boycotted Outdoor Patient Departments (OPDs) in all government hospitals of Hyderabad on Tuesday on the strike call given by the Grand Health Alliance, leaving thousands of needy patients deprived of treatment facilities.
In their demand to restore COVID-19 risk allowance for the doctors and health department employees, Grand Health Alliance continued to protest and staged a sit-in for restoration of the “Risk Allowance.”
Talking to the media, GHA office-bearers said the secretary of health had assured that our demands would be met by November 5 but no decision has so far been taken in that regard. They said the paramedical staff and other health department employees would record their protest in Karachi on Wednesday (Nov 09) and sit-in would be staged outside the Chief minister’s house. They warned that the protest movement would continue till they accepted our demands.
Meanwhile, thousands of patients have returned without being treated due to the OPD boycott. 
The patients said that due to the OPD boycott, they are being deprived of health facilities while they are unable to seek treatment in private hospitals due to poverty.