For ransom: Doctors threaten strikes if kidnapped neurosurgeon not rescued
Dr Qureshi was kidnapped as he left his clinic near Taj Complex on Saturday night.
HYDERABAD:
The Pakistan Medical Association has given the government three days to rescue neurosurgeon Dr Aftab Qureshi who was kidnapped on May 12 from Karachi. It warned of a province-wide strike in all government hospitals.
Dr Qureshi was kidnapped as he left his clinic near Taj Complex on Saturday night. His car was found abandoned outside Patel Hospital on the same night, according to advocate Naeemul Haq, his family lawyer.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the PMA general secretary Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi said the doctors are forced to protest and abandon work due to such threats. “Seventy to eighty per cent of well-known doctors are paying extortion just to survive. But they are still being killed or abducted.”
Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) called a general body meeting and protested. The doctors whose clinics are located in the Doctor’s Lines area in Saddar observed a voluntary boycott of work on Monday. The Young Doctors’ Association also organised a demonstration in government hospitals. The PMA has requested the associations of paramedics, nurses and the medical wings of the political parties to join them.
Dr Qureshi is a dialysis patient. One of his kidney’s was removed when he was a child.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 15th, 2012.
The Pakistan Medical Association has given the government three days to rescue neurosurgeon Dr Aftab Qureshi who was kidnapped on May 12 from Karachi. It warned of a province-wide strike in all government hospitals.
Dr Qureshi was kidnapped as he left his clinic near Taj Complex on Saturday night. His car was found abandoned outside Patel Hospital on the same night, according to advocate Naeemul Haq, his family lawyer.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the PMA general secretary Dr Hadi Bux Jatoi said the doctors are forced to protest and abandon work due to such threats. “Seventy to eighty per cent of well-known doctors are paying extortion just to survive. But they are still being killed or abducted.”
Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) called a general body meeting and protested. The doctors whose clinics are located in the Doctor’s Lines area in Saddar observed a voluntary boycott of work on Monday. The Young Doctors’ Association also organised a demonstration in government hospitals. The PMA has requested the associations of paramedics, nurses and the medical wings of the political parties to join them.
Dr Qureshi is a dialysis patient. One of his kidney’s was removed when he was a child.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 15th, 2012.