Pharmacists warn of countrywide protests

ISLAMABAD – After the over a month-long strike of young doctors that had crippled the working at hospitals across Punjab and the federal capital, Pakistan Pharmacist Association (PPA) has also warned the government of launching the protest in a similar fashion if their demand for a better service structure is not approved. The PPA members have rejected the Health Ministry’s proposal revising the service structure while demanding that they should be given the same perks and privileges as that of doctors, adding that in case of failure, they would go for a countrywide protest. An official in the Ministry of Health told Pakistan Today that Syed Khalid Saeed Bukhari, President of PPA, had written a letter to Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi about their demands.
According to the letter available with Pakistan Today, Bukhari said, “It has been quoted by the media that the prime minister has announced a new service structure for health professionals in which they have introduced new pay scales and have given the medics (doctors) a variation from a pay scale of 9 to 13 while the pharmacists are kept at a lower pay scale starting from 7. I would like to bring to your kind attention that a pharmacist gets a degree of Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) after 17 years of education, which includes primary and secondary education till 12th grade and then 5 years of professional education. This is no different than what doctors do.” It is worth mentioning that a meeting of PPA was held on Tuesday at the PIMS, Islamabad, which was attended by a large number of senior pharmacists.