After Amir Muqam, other politicians visit public hospitals

To show solidarity with protesting employees

PESHAWAR: The indecision of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to lodge the first information report (FIR) against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz provincial leader Amir Muqam for allegedly hitting the main entrance of Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and instigating doctors and other staffers to suspend healthcare services has encouraged other political leaders and workers to visit the tertiary care hospitals and express solidarity with the protesting employees.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan had directed the Khyber Pakhtun-khwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak during a press conference on Tuesday to lodge FIR against Amir Muqam for visiting the hospitals and provoking health workers to continue protest and suspend services there.

However, senior members of the provincial health department told The News that Chief Minister Pervez Khattak instead of lodging the FIR against Amir Muqam directed the HMC administration to register case against the PML-N leader.

“Amir Muqam had hit and damaged the main entrance of the HMC on Tuesday and made his entry by force along with armed guards and then addressed the protesting health workers there. Most of the protesters had gone from LRH to HMC and Amir Muqam addressed them there,” a senior official at the Health Department told The News.

Pleading anonymity, he said the HMC administration, working on acting charge basis till the appointment of regular medical director and hospital director, had expressed its helplessness to lodge the FIR against the influential PML-N leader.

“Imran Khan had given the task to Pervez Khattak and since he didn’t want to hurt Amir Muqam, he was pressuring the HMC administration to file the case. The HMC administration assured him that it would have definitely lodged the FIR had their employees been involved in the protest or disruption of services for patients. It argued that as Amir Muqam was a senior politician it was beyond their power to charge him directly,” the official said.

On Wednesday, Awami National Party MPA from Buner, Sardar Hussain Babak and the party’s central general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MPA Sobia, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam MPA from Buner Maulana Fazle Ghafoor and activists of the opposition political parties visited the Lady Reading Hospital and addressed the protesting health workers.

The PML-N MPA had brought some activists of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) with her to the hospital who chanted slogans against Imran Khan, Pervez Khattak and Prof Dr Nausherwan Burki, chairman of Lady Reading Hospital’s Board of Governors who had scripted the Medical Teaching Institution Reforms Act 2015.

MPA Fazle Ghafoor, while addressing the agitating health workers, alleged that the PTI-led government was privatising all the healthcare institutions. He assured the protesting employees of full support.Some senior doctors at the LRH said the government must take notice of the political leaders playing politics over the cause of protesting health employees.

“The PTI-led government is responsible for all this mess. The government has provided a space to these so-called political leaders at the LRH. Everybody knows these people are using the health workers for their political point-scoring but they should do this dirty game at some other place instead of LRH,” a senior faculty member said.