Doctors strike puts patients to distress

Rawalpindi

Patients suffered numerous difficulties, as doctors working in the three hospitals run by the Punjab government in the city went on strike on Monday. 

Young doctors did not perform their routine duties at Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) and Holy Family Hospital (HFH) and held a strike against senior doctors’ torture on their colleagues in Sargodha and General Hospital in Lahore.

The relatives of patients with serious complications strongly protested against doctors’ attitude demanding of the government to take an immediate action against strikes of doctors.

Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) Additional Medical Superintendent (Admin) Dr Masood Safdar told ‘The News’ that they were trying to control the situation. “I have sent some senior doctors to the hospital’s OPD to treat the visiting patients,” he claimed. He also said that he was continuously taking round of the hospital particularly the OPD to avoid strike like situation.

It is worth mentioning here that normal and even serious patients were forced to go to private hospitals and clinics for treatment. The patients and their attendants while criticising the doctors’ attitude said that the doctors in cover of baseless strikes were only denying treatment to the patients in government hospitals and not at their private clinics.

Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) Children Ward In-Charge Dr Waqas Ahmed said that senior doctors were trying to control this situation. “But it was bad thing to go on strike every other day on trivial issues,” he said.

Meanwhile, talking to ‘The News’ affected patients and their relatives strongly protested and denounced this attitude of doctors saying the issue was about some senior and junior doctors’ scuffle in Sargodha and Lahore so they could not understand as why the doctors in Rawalpindi went on strike. 

Tahir Abbas, relative of a patient at District Headquarters Hospital, said that the strike was only affecting the poor patients who had no choice but to go to government hospitals for treatment. He said, the patients coming to Rawalpindi’s three public hospitals (Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Holy Family Hospital and District Headquarters Hospital) continued to face difficulties in getting treatment. Patients visiting the OPDs were informed by the doctors or ward boys about the strike, he said.

Samina Rahil, a daughter of an old patient, Mumtaz Bagum, said that her mother was sugar patient suffering from fever since morning but there was no doctor at Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) to check her.