Doctors on the Streets: Health, Citizenship and Political Mobilisation of Medical Professionals in Pakistan

Doctor-activists in Pakistan have shutdown hospitals, boycotted outpatient departments, organised sit-ins outside government buildings, and come out on the streets to demand better work conditions and better access to health in the public sector. This political mobilisation was triggered by recent legal amendments over public sector hospital autonomy which the (junior) doctors in the public sector hospitals saw as a form of stealth privatisation, likely to make public hospitals less accessible to the poor. This project explores this form of political mobilisation for health as public good and how might it relate to questions of (biomedical) citizenship, professional identities and the politics of protest/resistance.

This project explores political mobilisation for health as public good and how might it relate to questions of (biomedical) citizenship, professional identities and the politics of protest/resistance.