LAHORE: A petition has been filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) against the Young Doctors who are protesting Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) raids against the tax defaulter hospitals. Lahore High Court (LHC) called secretary health in the same case. Petitioner Shahbaz Gujjar prayed before the court that LHC ordered YDA to stop protest and start work in the hospitals.
According to the brief history, more than 400 private hospitals had suspended all kinds of services on Thursday and the doctors observed a strike in the OPDs of the public sector health facilities in protest against raids by a Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) team on two private hospitals and confiscation of records and computers.
The emergency and indoor services at the Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Teaching Hospital (ABSTH), the tehsil headquarters hospitals and rural health centres remained open throughout the day.
The strike call was given by the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) Gujrat against the FBR raids on the private hospitals owned by Gujrat PMA president Dr Maqsood Zahid and a former head, Dr Zahid Zaheer, a week ago.
The patients remained seated outside the offices of the OPD in the ABSTH waiting for the medical officers. The medical superintendent, additional medical superintendent, deputy medical superintendents and the paramedical staff attended the patients.
The major private hospitals mainly along Bhimbher Road, Jail Road, Rehman Shaheed Road and other parts of the city remained closed. Banners having slogans of protest and strike were displayed in front of these hospitals.
The PMA and business organisations of Gujrat joined hands with the doctors against what they called highhandedness of the FBR for conducting raids without notices or negotiations over the tax issues. They demanded immediate transfer of the commissioner Inland Revenue.
An action committee announced a protest demonstration in front of the Gujrat FBR office in case of non-acceptance of their demands. There would be a shutter-down strike across the district, they annouced.
Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Dr Khurram Shahzad in a letter written to the chief executive officer health and medical superintendent of the ABSTH directed to ensure smooth delivery of services at the public health facilities of the district and said that the strike call was illegal. “The private hospitals’ owners who also hold the offices in the PMA use their influence for personal gains,” he said.
The doctors, he said, should have approached the relevant forum if they had any grievance as observing strike in the public sector hospitals over a “private issue” at the cost of patients and service delivery was not only against the dictum of medical ethics but contrary to the oath taken by the medical fraternity.
He also asked the medical officers and paramedics to continue with their government duty without indulging themselves in an unjustified call of strike.
