Service structure: Protesting doctors block main roads

YDA protests held at Jinnah, Ganga Ram and Services Hospitals.

LAHORE:

The Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab held protests outside several major hospitals here on Thursday, causing major traffic jams in the late morning and early afternoon.

Doctors demanding revisions to their service structure so they get improved allowances and promotion prospects protested outside Jinnah Hospital, Ganga Ram Hospital and Services Hospital, the latter the main rally. YDA members from Children’s Hospital and Lahore General Hospital also joined the protests.

The protests caused major traffic jams on Canal Bank Road, Jail Road and The Mall, with the doctors only letting ambulances past. The main protest on Jail Road went on from 11am to 1pm.

YDA Punjab President Dr Hamid Butt said that the doctors had protested peacefully, “but the government shouldn’t consider it a weakness”. He said the committee set up by the Lahore High Court to resolve the doctors’ service structure demands had not met for two weeks.

He said that the YDA was planning a province-wide protest on September 19 which would be followed by a long march culminating in an indefinite sit-in at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

YDA to protest after case registered against doctors

The police have registered a case against seven doctors including three office bearers of the Young Doctors Association Pakistan for allegedly threatening and roughing up the additional medical superintendent (security) of Mayo Hospital, a day after the doctors had accused the AMS of a similar crime.

A case has been registered at the Mayo Hospital police post against YDA General Secretary Dr Salman Kazmi, YDA President Dr Rana Sohail, YDA Chairman Dr Talha Shirwani and four unnamed doctors under Sections 507 (criminal intimidation by anonymous communication) and 426 (mischief) of the Penal Code.

The doctors had also filed an application with the police for a case against AMS Dr Tariq Ijaz, stating that he slapped and threatened a doctor and pointed a gun at him in an incident on Wednesday, but no FIR was registered on their complaint. They announced that they would hold a protest at 10:30am on Friday at the so-called Ghari Ward.

“It is a really a sad state of affairs that the police, instead of registering a case against AMS Tariq Ijaz   who is known as Tariq Pistol for torturing young doctors and pointing guns at them   has registered a case against the doctors of Mayo Hospital,” said the YDA officials.

They said that Medical Superintendent Dr Zahid Pervez had directed the police to register a case on the complaint of the AMS and not the complaint of the YDA officials.

Dr Pervez denied this, saying that the AMS had given his application directly to the police.

However, doctors with experience in hospital administration told The Express Tribune that there was an informal rule at Mayo Hospital and other hospitals with police posts that the police would not register an FIR without the medical superintendent’s approval.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 14^th, 2012.