Medical services at public hospitals in Vehari were suspended on Saturday as doctors and paramedical staff went on a strike called by the Pakistan Medical Association.
Nearly 500 protestors set up a hunger camp outside the main entrance of Vehari district headquarters hospital. The PMA announced boycott of hospital duties after the police registered an FIR against four doctors for alleged negligence.
The protestors walked from the hospital to the health EDO’s office.
They chanted slogans against the government and said their colleagues should be reinstated. They also called for cancellation of the FIR against them.
PMA General Secretary Masood Akbar led the protest.
“First they do not provide us basic facilities to do our jobs,” he told protestors. “Then they accuse us of negligence.”
He said the government should investigate where health funds allocated for south Punjab were going.
“All hospitals in Vehari are in a deplorable condition,” he said.
The protests started on Friday. Doctors in Vehari, Mailsi and Burewala are boycotting duties.
The government had suspended Medical Superintendent Chaudhary Muhammad Ashraf, child specialists Dr Khalid Mehmood, Dr Hafeez Ahmed and Dr Maqbool, staff nurse Sumaira Johnson and ward cleaners Muhammad Yaseen and Khalid of the ICU after it was revealed that 68 children had died in August in the incubators. An FIR was lodged against them under sections 302, 419 and 171 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The MS told The Express Tribune that the children had died from natural causes.
He said these children were born prematurely mostly because their mothers had not taken good care of them during the pregnancy.
Meanwhile, families of the deceased children protested against Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif for inviting them to meet him but not showing up.
They said the chief minister had asked them to meet him at the house of Muhammad Afzal, one of the people had also lost a child.
They said they had been gathering at his house every day but the chief minister had not come.
“We do not need to wait six to eight hours for a condolence,” they said.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 14th, 2014.