Sirajul Haq shows solidarity with doctors protesting for kits

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has expressed solidarity with the young doctors protesting against absence of personal protective kits for the last seven days by visiting their protest camp outside the office of the health secretary here Wednesday.

The JI chief distributed 100 protective kits among the doctors. He said there was a huge requirement for the kits under the present circumstances.

Talking to the media on the occasion, he said the PTI government was displaying an extreme apathy towards the doctors who have been the frontline fighters of the nation against coronavirus attack.

He said the doctors were not asking for ministries but simply for the protective gear as per the global SOPs to spearhead the campaign to protect the countrymen from coronavirus. He warned that so far over 25 doctors and paramedics had been affected by coronavirus in Lahore alone but the government had not provided the protective kits to the medical staff despite repeated promises which were forgotten the very next day.

He alleged that the PTI government was showing performance against coronavirus only in media propaganda while the situation on the ground was pathetic as neither the health minister nor the governor and chief minister of the province came to the protesting doctors to console them.

He said the doctors demanding protective gear were beaten up by police in Quetta, and in Lahore they were completely abandoned while others were dismissed from service. Sirajul Haq demanded the government provide the doctors with protective kits.

He said over 20,000 posts of doctors were lying vacant in Punjab alone but government was not appointing doctors. He said the global convention to which Pakistan was a signatory demands at least two doctors and a dentist per 1,000 people, but Pakistan has much less ratio, that accounted for the poor health conditions in the country. He said ad hoc doctors demand they should be recruited through public service commission but the government was not ready to do that even.

Sirajul Haq said JI considered doctors and paramedics as frontline mujahideen in the war against corona, and it was standing by the doctors and would never left them alone in their just demands and struggle.

He demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan embrace the doctors like his children. He said JI wanted to see smile on the faces of doctors because the smile would reflect on the faces of the patients too. He declared himself an advocate for the cause of doctors.