ISLAMABAD: A ladder rests against the wall of the Out Patient Department (OPD) at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) where workers are adding a fresh coat of paint to the building. In front of the building a weary woman sits on the ground leaning on her right hand for support, pain etched in every line of her face. All of a sudden, a shout rends the busy morning at Pims. An impassioned cry of: “Jeena ho ga, marna ho ga, dharna ho ga, dharna ho ga!” (Life or death, the sit-in will continue.)

The cry for protest has come from a crowd of around 700 paramedics, doctors and support staff, who have been on strike for almost two weeks campaigning for their demand to separate Pims from the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU).

Inside the OPD, patients wait in queues — men in their queue and the women in theirs. But there is no one behind the counter who could tell them where to go for treatment. A few yards away from the OPD, a young man with a fractured leg lies on a stretcher surrounded by anxious attendants awaiting treatment.

The situation inside the Emergency Ward is even more precarious. A few nurses run from one patient to the other trying to keep up with the number of patients they have to treat.

The patients will have to wait till 11am before they can be treated. For the last two weeks, the protesters gather in front of the administration department at Pims early in the morning and register their protest before getting back to work at 11am.

Pims was merged with SZAMBU in 2013 when the university was established through a law passed by the previous Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government.

The employees of Pims — one of the largest hospitals of the country and perhaps the only government-run state-of-the-art facility for patients in the entire northern region — say that this merger deprived them of basic rights such as gratuity, promotions, residence and other facilities offered to civil servants in federal departments.

So they have decided to gather in front of their own ‘Hyde Park’ — the driveway in front of the Pims administration department — to demand a reversal of the decision. The protesters have given the government a deadline of Oct 18 to accept their demand for separation of the hospital from the university, and have threatened to escalate the protest if their demands are not met.

On this particular day, the protesters are charged up, rehearsing and bucking each other up to get ready for the final showdown.

A dais has been set up for those who will make the speeches, while other staffers — some in uniform, others without — sit on chairs or stand in disciplined rows.

One of the speakers pauses mid-speech looking to catch a breath, and the warm air erupts with shouts of: “VC ka jo yaar hai, ghaddaar hai ghaddaar hai. Hum sub aik hain, hum sub saath hain!”(Whoever supports the vice chancellor is a traitor. We are one in our demand.)

Raising his voice above the cacophony of sloganeering, Manzar Shah, a senior leader of the association, announces that they will set up beds and workstations in open air to treat serious patients in the OPD but will not work inside the hospital until their demands are met.

Doctor Asfandyar Khan, another leader, suggests that they need to take the strike up a notch. “Every department has stopped working except one, the sanitation workers. We have asked them to continue working because that will be the final phase of the strike. The day they stop their work will be the day you will realise how far we can go,” he says, while addressing the vice chancellor of SZAMBU and its senior officials.

Then a song blares from the speakers: “Ye tera Pakistan hai, ye mera Pakistan hai, is ki bunyadon mein hai tera lahu, mera lahu.” (This is your Pakistan and mine. In its foundation is your blood and mine.)

Inside the administration block, offices of the Pims management are locked. “The VC was thrown out of the office a week ago by the protesters, so nobody from the management comes to this block now,” says a guard on duty there. The rest of the staff is on strike, he adds.

Professor Javed Akram, vice chancellor of SZAMBU, says he visits his office when required. “I have three offices and sit wherever I’m required. Right now I’m leaving the Pims office,” he says on the phone.

“Regarding the demands of the staff, I wrote to the government last year, requesting that Pims hospital be separated from the university, and the authorities are working on it.”

But the employees are adamant. They are not willing to end their protest until they get a notification in writing.

“We don’t believe in verbal assurances. We want a notification of the separation of the university,” says Mohammad Sharif Khattak, general secretary of United Action Committee of the employees.

At 11am, Khattak halts his speech and chants the final slogan, “Pakistan Zindabad!”

The employees respond vociferously and head to their respective departments to resume work.

An attendant of a patient shouts as he sees doctors and paramedics entering the building.

“The strike is over, let’s go in!”

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2017