Doctors’ protests bring city to halt

Ferozepur Road, Mall Road, Jail Road and Canal Road remain closed for traffic

LAHORE: Major arteries and thoroughfares of the provincial capital witnessed heavy gridlocks due to protests by the Grand Health Alliance (GHA), an organisation representing doctors, paramedics and allied health staff. The demonstrators were out in full force against the newly-introduced Medical Teaching Institute Act (MTI) on Monday.

GHA chapters of major hospitals of Lahore, including Lahore General Hospital, Children Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, Services Hospital, Sheikh Zayed, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Mayo Hospital and others closed down main roads from 11:00am to 3:00pm. These included Ferozepur Road, Mall Road, Jail Road and Canal Road.

These four roads are the main arteries of the city. Any disruption at any one of these leads to load on other main thoroughfares of the city.

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Chief Traffic Police Officer (CTO) Liaqat Ali Malik declared blocking of roads as “un-Islamic”.

GHA main leader Salman Haseeb Chaudhry said Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid had challenged them to block the roads as she said protests inside hospitals failed to produce results. He asked the minister to turn on her television screen to understand that the whole of Punjab had been locked down. This was done by GHA alone, an alliance formed due to her government’s measures. He warned that they could even lockdown Islamabad if she had a desire to witness their power.

A banner, explaining what MTI meant for the doctors and the paramedic staff, was displayed by Young Nurses Association (YNA) at Lahore Services Hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2019.