The ‘merciless’ paramedical staff blocked the city’s main artery and two major health facilities for hours, as a woman lost her life in the ambulance stuck in the traffic mess while thousand other commuters suffered on Wednesday.
Members of the Punjab Paramedical Alliance, holding banners and placards inscribed with their demands, blocked the main Jail Road in front of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology around 2pm. They started raising slogans against the government for ignoring their demands and refuse to let the traffic coming from Shadman Chowk pass. It immediately blocked the road since the Jail Road is home to many educational institutes and offices.
However, the protesters then turned to the other side of road as well and blocked it also and even refused to allow ambulances pass, including those carrying critical patients to Services Hospital and the Punjab Institute of Cardiology. In the same mess a 60-year-old woman, Saleema Bibi, lost her life in the ambulance that was stuck in the traffic jam.
“We have been referred to the Services Hospital by the doctors at Mayo Hospital…but we were stuck in this mess for the past two hours and ultimately she [Saleema] passed away right in front of us and we could do nothing,” an attendant in the ambulance said in tears. “All efforts to convince the protesters to let us pass were in vain,” he added.
Per details, thousands of poor patients visit the Services Hospital and the PIC everyday from all across the province with different ailments. Besides, the Jail Road is also a major artery which connects the city with the canal, Gulberg and Cantonment also. Any blockade on this road can create repercussions in the traffic situation in other parts of the city also.
“I want to go to The Mall to pick my kid from school…this road is normally clogged at this time but this is one of the worst jams I have come across…the protesters should consider the plight of commuters as well…it is extremely selfish of them to think that they can make commuters and patients suffer just because their demands were not met,” Hina Ahsan, a housewife on her way to pick her child said, adding that it was shame how the paramedics had turned into ‘selfish killers’ to get their demands met.
The paramedical staff, who refused to budge despite request by commuters, traffic officials and even police, kept the traffic blocked for around four hours. They opened the traffic only after holding negotiations with the CTO and PIC MS.
PPA Provincial President Malik Munir said, “Our demands included that health professional allowance that has been given to us should be given to us, we want a revision of the service structure of lower grade employees and pay protection,” he said, adding that they had only taken to the streets because they were not being taken seriously.
To a question, he said the Lahore division organisation of paramedics had informed the government of the protest so it was the government’s responsibility to make arrangement for the patents. “We are the ones who serve the patients it is impossible for us to make the patients suffer because of our protest,” he added. To another question about a woman’s death, he said it was the responsibility of the government and not of the protesters. He also denied that ambulances were stuck in the traffic saying that the protesters had “made sure” no ambulance was stuck in the traffic.
