Young doctors: Security alert at hospital after MS ‘threatened’

MS says doctors recently released from jail threatened to attack him, doctors deny.

GUJRANWALA:

Additional guards were deployed at the Civil Hospital on Tuesday after some of the young doctors allegedly threatened to assault the medical superintendent.

The district coordination officer said he had ordered police to be alert after he was informed that the protesting young doctors had threatened to attack the medical superintendent again. MS Anwar Aman said he was threatened over telephone.

Of the seven doctors arrested in January for vandalising the office of the MS and attacking him, the court had released two on bail on Saturday. Young Doctors Association Regional President Kashif Bilal was one of them.

The MS told The Express Tribune that the released doctors were behind the threats.

Dr Bilal, however, denied the allegation saying that none of the young doctors had called or threatened the MS.

Also on Tuesday, the MS ordered an inquiry into a doctor’s complaint that he was beaten up by a patient’s family at the emergency ward.  Dr Sajjad Mustafa said when he asked the patient’s attendants to leave the ward, they beat him up and fled.

Bilal, the patient said that when he was brought to the hospital with a broken arm on Monday, Dr Mustafa refused to treat him. This, he said, led to an argument between the doctor and his family.

Some people, including the patients’ attendants, later gathered in front of the hospital and protested against the doctors.

Some of the protesters told The Express Tribune that some of the doctors had been demanding money from patients in the name of a ‘tribute’ “for not going on a strike and tending to them instead”. They said some ward boys, nursing staff and receptionists had also turned rude.

Asad, one of the patients, said he had to return without seeing a doctor after he was made to wait for four hours while those bribing the door boy got to see the doctor.

The protesters demanded that the MS take notice of the situation that, they said, “was getting out of hand under his nose”.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2013.