A woman attending to her ailing child lying on a stretcher outside the Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi. Patients and their attendants faced difficulties due to the ongoing protest of nurses in several hospitals. PHOTO: NNI
Nurses of the Rawalpindi’s three major public sector hospitals continued protest on Sunday against death of one of their colleagues in Lahore reportedly in a clash with police. They vowed to continue their protest till the acceptance of their demands.
Nurses of the three hospitals assembled at Benazir Bhutto Hospital chanting slogans against the government and staged sit-in outside the emergency ward of the hospital to show solidarity with their colleagues.
Emergency and intensive care units of the hospitals remained shut.
The Punjab government announced three-year extension in contracts of the ad-hoc nurses but they continued sit-in saying it was not enough and they demanded immediate regularization.
They have been demanding that their services be regularised like that of lady health workers and the doctors.
On Friday, a seven-month pregnant nurse and her three colleagues suffered injuries when police thrashed them severely and resorted to baton charge at the Mall Road in Lahore while five were reportedly arrested by the Punjab Police.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2014.
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