‘Enough is enough’: HMC nurses protest against harassment, boycott services

Govt orders a halt to nursing school lessons, closes hostels to discourage protest.

PESHAWAR:

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Nurses Association (PNA) boycotted all services at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on Monday, which coincidentally was International Nurses Day. They demanded criminal charges be filed against a doctor accused of beating a nurse. While officials claim an FIR was filed, protesters said otherwise, and demand the doctor be fired.

HMC nurses were joined by students of the hospital’s nursing school, and patients seeking treatment were turned away.

An HMC official, wishing anonymity, said patients at all out patient departments (OPD), including the emergency, suffered as the boycott meant they could not be treated. Some people had travelled from areas located at a considerable distance from the hospital, he added.

This is the second day nurses protested against the harassment of one of their own outside the hospital. On Sunday, HMC security officer Syed Muhammad Umer told demonstrators the hospital would launch an enquiry against the suspended doctor and register an FIR.

However, protestors claim legal action has not been taken against the accused trainee medical officer (TMO), Dr Yaseen Khan.

The official said a three-member committee has been set up by the hospital’s administration to investigate the matter and has suspended TMO Khan, who abused and injured Ghazala on Saturday night.

The 32-year-old nurse reported the TMO was asleep on the job when she asked him to tend to a patient. Since Yaseen Khan refused, Ghazala told the patient’s relatives the doctor was sleeping. The enraged TMO beat her for her actions, causing injuries to her head and arms.

PNA President Farukh Jalil said their protest would continue till Khan was fired and charges were filed against him under the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010.

Jalil threatened that nurses would boycott Khyber Teaching Hospital and Lady Reading Hospital on Tuesday (today) if justice was not served. The incident was the last straw for nurses who are mistreated and harassed on a regular basis at public sector hospitals across K-P, Jalil had told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

“No authorities have visited the hospital to ask about the nurses’ protest,” he added.

In an effort to bring an end to the protests, the K-P government’s Provincial Health Services Academy has issued an order to halt sessions at HMC’s nursing school for one week. They have also ordered the closing of hostels at the school.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2014.