PESH AWAR: Doctors of the provincial capital`s three major government hospitals on Saturday went on strike to protest the proposed laws, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Healthcare Commission Act 2015 and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Act 2015, and announced their protest would continue till the clauses going against their interests were not removed.

The medical practitioners of the Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex closed outpatient departments and operation theatres and suspended provision of diagnostic services to visitors totaling more than 20,000.

`We, the doctors, held meetings with the government representatives on Friday but the latter didn`t hint at accepting our demands, so we decided to go on strike,` Dr Taj of the Insaf Doctors` Forum told Dawn.According to him, the government wants to close down the Postgraduate Medical Institute (PGMI), while doctors are against it saying the institute has been playing a vital role in the promotion of medical education and imparting postgraduate training to doctors, so it should be strengthened instead of being closed down.

`The PGMI has been playing an instrumental role in the production of medical specialists for the province, which faces an acute shortage of such doctors. In this light, any move to close it down will be resisted,` he said.

Dr Taj said doctors provided emergency services to the critically-ill and injured people but denied treatment to visitors to OPDs to register protest.

He claimed the government`s proposed laws would harm medical education and their ultimately suffers would be patients.

Dr Taj said the provincial doctors` association, young doctors association and paramedical association had joined forces to stop the government from doing anything harmful to the healthcare system.

Visitors to the three hospitals complained about denial of treatment and blamed both doctors and the government for it.

Mushtaq Ali, a 35-year-old shopkeeper from Swabi, saiddoctors of LRH didn`t see a single patient at OPD and hundreds of visitors with chronic ailments returned home without treatment.

He said doctors didn`t do duty in government hospitals diligently but received salary and perks and privileges fully.

The visitor asl
Anwar Shah, a resident of Upper Dir, said he had come to the hospital for her daughter`s gallstone operation but the scheduled surgical procedure didn`t take place to his misery.

He said the strike showed the government`s failure to contain doctors.

`It is the responsibility of the government to take action against doctors closing down hospitals.

The government is to blame for our sufferings,` he said.

The critically-ill patients waited at OPDs for long hours before going home without treatment.

Among them were also the people, who had shown up from other cities of the province.

Patients complained private clinics remained open during the day and that the strikes of doctors were meant to divert patients to them.

Some visitors also scuffled with doctors and health workers over denial of treatment.