LRH doctors, paramedics clash over hostel possession

PESHAWAR: The Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) here on Monday was turned into a battlefield after trainee medical officers (TMOs) and paramedics resorted to violence over the possession of a residential hostel on the hospital premises by throwing stones at each other, damaging public property and forcibly suspending health services at the largest hospital in the province.
LRH spokesman Syed Jamil Shah said seven people including three doctors, two paramedics and two Class-IV employees suffered injuries in the clash.
One of the TMOs, Dr Abid Ihsan reportedly suffered serious head injury and was admitted to the Neurosurgery ward of the hospital. The dispute involved a newly built hostel.
Senior Health Department officials and doctors in LRH said the issue got out of control due to negligence of the hospital administration.
They asked for stern departmental action against it for allowing the trainee doctors to occupy the building and not playing its role to prevent the violent clash between the two sets of employees at the hospital.
“Had the Medical Teaching Institutions law been implemented and competent people selected for the crucial positions of medical director and hospital director, such happenings would have never happened. And if any such incident had taken place, the two would have been held responsible for their failure to prevent it,” a senior Health Department official observed.
He said the Peshawar High Court had declared health services as essential services but even then the doctors and different associations of employees in these public sector hospitals go on strike and suspend services.
Physical clashes between the TMOs and paramedics began after the trainee doctors refused to vacate possession of a hostel that they thought was built for them. The TMOs had been living in rented buildings for the past many years outside the hospital.
It has been the longstanding demand of the trainee medical doctors that they should be given accommodation within the hospital premises as they had to serve round the clock in shifts in the hospital.
Besides the TMOs, paramedics and other hospital employees also had been demanding accommodation in the hospital premises.
According to Hospital Director LRH Dr Laiqzada, the situation took an ugly turn when TMOs on Saturday night entered the hostel by breaking the locks and started residing there.
He said the hostel was constructed for accommodation of paramedics in the PC-1 and was already handed over to them a few months ago.
“The paramedics were even allotted rooms in the hostel but they wanted to begin living there after inauguration of the building by Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai,” the hospital director said. It enraged the paramedics when they came to know that TMOs had occupied the hostel built for them.
They held protest outside the offices of the hospital administration and gave a two-hour deadline to the LRH authorities to get the hostel vacated from doctors.
Dr Laiqzada said he along with senior doctors held talks with TMOs to vacate the building peacefully, but they refused and insisted it was built for them.
Later when their two-hour deadline expired, the protesting paramedics along with class-IV employees stormed the hostel that led a scuffle between the doctors and paramedics.
Both sides openly pelted stones and pieces of bricks at each other. They also damaged the building and smashed its window glasses and doors.
The police were called in after the hospital administration failed to resolve the issues through dialogue. They resorted to baton-charge and used tear gas to disperse the doctors and paramedics.
The hostel was sealed and it was decided that departmental inquiry would be conducted to determine who was responsible for creating law and order issue by taking the law into hands and forcibly stopped health services at the hospital.
Dr Laiqzada said they would lodge FIR for the incident after seeking advice from their legal advisor. Meanwhile, the TMOs claimed that there existed a hostel for the doctors conducting diplomas in gynae before it was demolished and rebuilt.
However, Dr Laiqzada said it was during Dr Hameed Afridi’s tenure as head of the LRH that it was declared for paramedics in the PC-1.
Roeedar Shah, provincial general secretary of Paramedics Association, said the doctors already had four hostels but the paramedics working at LRH were facing difficulties in accommodation. “We have been working in three shifts by rotation. There is not a single room where we can stay after performing duty. The hostel was built for us but was taken over by the doctors,” he said.
Meanwhile, patients coming from all over the province and adjoining tribal areas suffered due to the clash between the LRH employees. The protesting paramedics and doctors suspended services at the OPDs, operation theatres, radiology department and laboratory of the hospital.