VEHARI: An 18-year-old girl died at DHQ Hospital emergency where, as her family alleged, she was denied treatment due to doctors’ strike on Friday night.

Musarrat Shaheen, a resident of Bangla Fazil village, was admitted to the DHQ hospital emergency with a severe stomach pain complaint. Her family alleged that the doctors and paramedics did not properly treat her due to strike as a result of which she died after some time. A doctor, however, denied the allegation and said the girl was discharged after treatment.

The doctors of the DHQ hospital took out a protest rally from the hospital to the EDO office on Saturday. Led by Pakistan Medical Association’s district president Dr Tariq Mahmood Tahir and general-secretary Dr Rao Masood Akbar, the protesters raised slogans against EDO (Health) Dr Afzal Bashir and DCO Jawad Akram and demanded withdrawal of cases against the doctors instituted in the wake of four newborns’ deaths at the Children Ward’s ICU.

Dr Akram, the medical superintendent of Burewala THQ hospital who took the additional charge of the DHQ hospital MS, told Dawn that the doctors misbehaved with him when he turned up to join the office.

He said he had sent a written complaint to the DCO as almost all the wards he had visited were locked. Even at the emergency a majority of the patients were referred to the other hospitals like Nishtar Hospital, Multan.

Doctors of almost all state-run hospitals joined the strike.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2014