LAHORE: The Young Doctors Association (YDA) and health authorities held a marathon meeting at the University of Health Sciences here on Friday to resolve differences over the central induction policy.

The YDA delegation was led by its senior vice-president Dr AttifChaudhry while that of the department by health secretary Najam Shah.

Both sides discussed issues for about four hours while the followup meeting was expected late on Friday or Saturday morning (today).

`The two sides discussed in detail all the disputed issues and the health authorities agreed to resolve some of them,` Dr Attif told Dawn by phone.

He said the health department showed willingness to resolve issues, such as, increase in postgraduate trainee slots in all teach-ing hospitals of the province, rationalization of the infrastructure at institutes` level, marks distribution while induction of PGs, re-evaluation of free medicines to patients at public sector hospitals and early completion of incomplete health projects.

He said both sides were yet to decide about some `core demands`.

`One of them is controlling of the PGs induction by the health department from the secretariat through the newly-introduced CIP scheme, he said.

Throughout the world, he said, the institutes were given theauthority to hold this process, but the health department centralized it setting aside all reservations of young doctors.

He made it clear that the YDA would continue to observe strike at OPDs of all government hospitals till the acceptance of their `genuine` demands.

Further decision would be taken in the light of the next round of dialogue, Dr Attif said.

Meanwhile, the young doctors observed a complete strike at the state-run hospitals to mount pressure on the government to accept their demands.