Services restored at Nowshera hospital

PESHAWAR: The services to patients were finally restored at the Qazi Hussain Ahmad Medical Complex in Nowshera on Thursday after nine days of protest by a politically-backed group of health workers.

The hospital was taken hostage by a group of health workers who stopped the faculty members from providing services to patients. They neither allowed the doctors to attend Out-Patient Department (OPD) nor their evening time clinics under the institution-based private practice. The operation theatres were also kept closed and all surgical procedures postponed.

Most of the faculty members as well as lower staff claimed they had nothing to do with the protest, saying a “small group of troublemakers had organised the protest on the directive of a local politician and some former employees of the hospital who were illegally recruited in the institution”.

Chief Justice Peshawar High Court Justice Qaisar Rashid Khan had taken note of the patients’ sufferings and ordered the Health Department and authorities of the hospital to restore services there forthwith.

The government was about to take action against the protesting workers after they refused to call off the strike and allow the doctors to restore services.

However, Medical Director (MD) Prof Dr Khalid Khan and Hospital Director (HD) Dr Arshad Khan played a role in bringing the situation under control by engaging the health workers in talks.

According to insiders, some of the health workers wanted the government to use force so that they could extend the strike to the rest of the hospitals in the province. However, the MD and HD successfully convinced them to call off the strike and restored all services in the hospital.