Patients suffer in agony as doctors boycott OPDs at Khairpur, Sukkur govt hospitals

SUKKUR: Doctors and paramedics of the government hospitals in Khairpur and Sukkur boycotted OPDs and held protest rallies in solidarity against the lawyers’ attack on the Pakistan Institute of Cardiology, Lahore. The show of solidarity, however, proved to be yet another day of discomfort for a large number of patients who had to be turned away from the government hospitals. A number of operations were cancelled and there was no one to attend to the patients at the OPDs who had come from far away. Only the emergency departments at these hospitals functioned. Addressing the rallies, representatives of the Action Committee Dr. Muhammed Zaffar Jatoi, Dr. Javeed Samoo and Abdul Hakeem Jaghirani said the storming and attack on doctors and patients at the Pakistan Institute of Cardiology, Lahore has turned the medical staff insecure across the country. Demanding stern punishment to the culprits, they also sought security at the hospitals. The medical staff frequently resorted to boycotting the OPDs and cancelling the operations to press for their different demands, including better terms of service, etc.