Jewellers protest shortage of specialists at DHQ hospital

SARGODHA:

Scores of jewellers on Thursday protested against shortage of heart specialists at the Joharabad DHQ Hospital after one of their colleagues died of cardiac arrest at the hospital.

The jewellers, accompanied by the family of the deceased, gathered in front of the hospital and staged a demonstration there. They chanted slogans against the hospital administration and the Health Department, saying it was the responsibility of the government to ensure availability of specialists at health facilities.

They said Muhammad Sohail had been brought to the hospital with a chest pain. They said he died at the hospital without receiving proper medical attention. They said he could have survived had he been treated by a heart specialist.

Joharabad Jewellers Association president Allah Ditta said the Joharabad DHQ hospital was the biggest hospital in the area. “I don’t understand why the hospital does not have a heart specialist,” he said.  He said the government should recruit specialists for all public health facilities. Talking to The Express Tribune, hospital MS Nazar Hayat Majoka said the hospital had a heart specialist, an orthopaedic specialist and a skin specialist. He said all three of them were on a leaveHe said Sohail had had a heart attack when he was brought to the hospital. He said doctors at the emergency ward had tried to resuscitate him. “Life and death are in God’s hands. It is unfair to blame doctors for every death,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2015.