Riot police rest on a green patch near the YDA hunger strike camp. PHOTO: RIAZ AHMED/EXPRESS
LAHORE:
Opposition politicians lent their support to the Young Doctors Association (YDA) Punjab on Monday, a day after they were repelled by force in their attempt to gatecrash the inauguration ceremony of the Metro Bus Service.
Members of students associations and civil society also visited the doctors’ hunger strike camp, at the service lane in front of Services Hospital, as their strike entered its eighth day on Monday.
A YDA spokesman said that they had received support from President Asif Zardari. “The president came to Services Hospital to inquire about the health of [PPP leader] Shaukat Basra. Later, women parliamentarians conveyed his message to us. They said the president was against the brutal torture of doctors,” said Dr Khurrum Shehzad, YDA Punjab’s media secretary.
The spokesman said that the association had appealed to all its members to resume their duties at emergency and outpatient departments. “Many didn’t go to the outpatient departments as several doctors had been arrested by the police from hospitals [on Sunday] and been tortured. There is a general sense of fear and unease among doctors, which is why they are not going to work. But the YDA Punjab has not called a strike. We will continue our peaceful hunger strike for the rights of patients and doctors,” said Dr Shehzad.
He said that the YDA Punjab would stage a rally on Wednesday, but the time and venue was yet to be decided.
A delegation of the PPP and PML-Q, including Faiza Malik, Amna Ulfat and Bushra Malik, during their visit to the camp, condemned the police baton-charge on young doctors.
The Punjab government exposed its “brutal face” in its treatment of doctors, said PPP leader Faiza Malik. She said the police had not just beaten up young doctors, but also a parliamentarian.
Insaf Students Federation (ISF) Central President Farrukh Habib also visited the hunger strike camp and condemned the Punjab government as “no better than a dictatorship”. He said that as a result of the Punjab government’s actions, patients were dying in hospitals. He said the YDA was protesting for the rights of patients. He said that the Tehreek-i-Insaf would continue to support the doctors.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2013.
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This YDA stuff should better quit medical profession, as they are consistently violating their oath, and join these political parties that they deserve!