Doctors’ protests cause traffic jam in city

They stage sit-ins on almost all major roads, including Jail Road, Mall Road

LAHORE: A massive traffic jam was observed in the city as all the main roads of the city were closed for traffic by protesters of the Grand Health Alliance (GHA) on Thursday.

GHA is a newly-established organisation comprising representatives of doctors, nurses, paramedics and allied health staff, against newly-introduced Medical Teaching Institute Ordinance (MTI). GHA believes MTI is a project of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to privatise the health sector. They consider the step disastrous as it would end their status of government employees as well as make the treatment expensive for the public.

The protesters staged sit-ins on almost all the major roads, including Jail Road, Mall Road, Ferozpur Road, Canal Road and Queens Road.

The doctors’ community, a vibrant section of GHA, has an exposure of locking down the city as Young Doctors Association (YDA), the organisation of government hospital doctors, had led a movement for their rights mainly service structure in 2011-12. Most of their demands were fulfilled. One of the main reasons being behind their strikes success is the strategic location of major hospitals, the bases of GHA/YDA, in the city.

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Mall Road, Jail Road, Queens Road, Ferozpur Road, Canal Road are the main arteries of the city. When GHA goes for protests, Lahore Mayo Hospital chapter moves towards Mall Road, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital to Queens Road, Services Hospital on Jail Road, Jinnah Hospital on Canal Road, Children and Lahore General Hospital chapters on Ferozpur Road.

Ferozpur Road connects one side of the city with the other from Mozang to Gajjumatta; Shahadara to Mozang. Similar is the case with Canal Road that passes through one corner to the other of the city from Harbancepura to Thokar Niaz Beg.

Honking horns, bumper to bumper traffic at a snail’s pace became the order of the roads as citizens faced a lot of inconveniences.

The protesters demanded an immediate withdrawal of MTI and threatened to widen the scope of their protests.

As far as City Traffic Police Lahore (CTPL)’s dealing with the issue is concerned, they deployed extra-force on the occasion and tried to maintain the flow of traffic by diverting it to adjacent roads.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2019.