LANDI KOTA L: The doctors at agency headquarters hospital threatened here on Wednesday to go on strike if the local grid station failed to reduce duration of power loadshedding in the hospital within 48 hours.

Talking to journalists af ter an emergency meeting, they said that staff of local grid station observed more than 15 hours loadshedding in the hospital daily. It affected provision of health facilities at the hospital, they added.

The doctors said that they were compelled to defer a number of emergency surgeries owing to untimely suspension of power supply. They said a number of electric machines were rendered useless owing to excessive power outages.

The patients also said that they were spending sleepless nights owing to power outages and low voltage of electricity.

Naseebullah, a local tribesman, said that he had to shif t his ailing mother to a private hospital in Peshawar owing to excessive and unscheduled power loadshedding. He said that it was an additional financial burden on him and his f amily.

The doctors alleged that they had repeatedly brought the issue into the notice of political administration and grid station staff but to no avail. They said that power suspension also caused shortage of water in the hospital, forcing patients and their attendants to buy water from the owners of private tankers.

They threatened to lock the hospital wards and offices and suspend all types of medical care if the duration of loadshedding was not reduced within two days.

Meanwhile, the shopkeepers and traders at Landi Kotal Bazaar approached the local administration for immediate repair of faulty solar lights installed at a number of points at the market.

A staffer at the grid station, when contacted, said that they were instructed by of ficials of Tribal Areas Electricity supply Company to release electricity from only one feeder for three hours on daily basis.

He said that the entire Landi Kotal tehsil was divided in dif ferent zones and each zone got electricity for three hours on turn owing to low power voltage from main grid in Peshawar.