Patients, commuters suffer YDA protest

Medical staff reject the imposition of MTI law in Punjab, warn of expanding the protest

RAWALPINDI: Young doctors at the Benazir Bhutto General Hospital (BBH) in Rawalpindi on Tuesday gave the government a yet another deadline to restore suspended Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Tariq Niazi as their movement appeared to gain some momentum.

As a result of the protest, patients inside the hospital and commuters on Murree Road had to suffer problems.

Members of the Young Doctors Association (YDA) at the BBH and the hospital’s staff have been protesting for the past two weeks over the Punjab government’s decision to suspend Dr Niazi for alleged negligence. However, his suspension came after the audio of a phone call between the hospital’s MS and Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat went viral in which the latter exhorted the former to transfer the daughter of incarcerated Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Hanif Abbasi.

On Tuesday, YDA members and BBH staff staged another protest outside the hospital and blocked traffic on the Murree Road, which runs outside it. They were joined by YDA representatives and doctors from the two other allied hospitals in the city, including the Holy Family Hospital (HFH) and the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ).

They chanted slogans against the Punjab government and the Punjab law minister for what they called was political interference in the affairs of the hospital.

They demanded that Dr Niazi should be restored to his post.

They also rejected imposing the medical teaching institutions (MTI) act on teaching hospitals of Punjab and demanded that the government withdraw the law.

Protesters kept the Murree Road blocked for an hour which wreaked havoc with traffic in the city with the road and adjoining streets jam-packed with vehicles.

Separately, the paramedical staff of the DHQ protested outside the civil hospital at Fawara Chowk against the provincial government’s decision to introduce MTI law in the province.

They stated that instead of being a welfare institution, the law will turn hospitals into corporate entities which seek profit. Moreover, their jobs will be under threat and demanded that they are regularised with permanent jobs with a service structure.

If their demands are not heeded, they were willing to take extreme steps. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2019.