LAHORE – The young doctors managed to pull-off the first day of the street check-up strike on Monday. They provided outdoor patient department (OPD) services to patients on the streets by setting up medical camps, while simultaneously protesting for the pay raise. The doctors, with black bands wrapped on their arms, set up camps outside all government hospitals including Mayo Hospital, General Hopsital, Children Hospital, Services Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and Jinnah Hospital. Only the camp at the Jinnah Hospital got late in setting up.
Patients arriving at the camps were issued a private slip free-of-cost. The patients were told to collect the prescribed medicine from the hospitals’ pharmacies. Although the patients arriving at the camps kept complaining about the OPDs not opening for seven days, the doctors provided their services in an acceptable manner.
“Thank God they’ve realized the need and have thought about the poor and the old,” said an old woman suffering from stomach infection who came for a check-up. She said that she kept coming at the hospital for 4 days looking for doctors but the OPDs were closed. She said she should not be the suffering party in this fight between the doctors and the government. She said that the camp offered satisfactory services to her. “Something is better than nothing,” she added.
Latter, in a press conference, the Young Doctors Association (YDA) spokesperson Dr Aftab revealed that the Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif had formed a committee on the issue for raising doctors’ salaries, and has scheduled a meeting with YDA today. He said that the roadside check-up would continue until YDA’s further decision. To a question, he said that the YDA members were funding relief camps.
