KARACHI – The doctors’ fraternity will lodge widespread protests and boycott emergency services if medical professionals are not given adequate protection from extortion, the wrath of patients’ families, and lodging of FIRs without any evidence, argued office bearers of leading representative bodies of the medical community.
Addressing a crowded press conference at the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) office, doctors; representatives claimed that different political parties and groups are continuously sending parchis to doctors working in Malir, Lyari Town, Landhi, Korangi, Shahrah-e-Faisal and other parts of the city, demanding huge sums of money in extortion. The press conference was led by PMA-Karachi President Prof. Idrees Adhi, and was also addressed by Private Hospital & Clinics Association Secretary- General Dr Munawar, Pakistan Paediatric Association Vice-President Prof. Jamal Raza and others.
The doctors’ also demanded the cancellation of cases lodged against medical professionals, including the one registered against Dr Ahmar and Dr Zaman of Mamji Hospital. On the directives of a court, the police had lodged an FIR against the two, and arrested them over negligence in treating a child suffering from food poisoning.
During the press conference, Dr Samrina Hashmi of Noor Hospital urged office-bearers of these bodies to announce boycotting emergency services, but the doctors rejected her plea, and said that it was an extreme demand that they will adopt only if their demands remain unfulfilled.
“It is becoming a routine matter that relatives of the patients who died in hospital are blaming doctors for negligence, and without listening to anything, they attack the doctor in question. Such incidents are increasing by the day,” said Prof. Idrees Adhi. When asked about the number of such incidents reported in 2010, Prof. Adhi said that no data was collected nor did any organization conduct any inquiry in such incidents.
“Not only do the patients’ relatives attack the doctors and paramedics but also destroy hospital property and equipment. Consider, for example, the attack on DHQ Hospital in Muzzafargarh by a MNA-led mob in which a doctor lost his eye, or the murder of 2 doctors during a polio drive in Peshawar after a ‘Fatwah’ by a so-called religious scholars against polio drops,” he said.
