LAHORE: The day-long sit-in of hundreds of paramedics which continued till late in the night outside the Club Road on Monday for the service structure brought traffic in the provincial capital to almost a standstill.

The worst situation was witnessed on The Mall, Jail Road, Shadman, Davies Road, Kashmir Road, Queen’s Road and the Lahore canal where hundreds of motorists remained stuck in a bumper-to-bumper traffic mess. Long queues of vehicles also choked adjoining link roads and residential colonies.

The paramedics gathered there on the call of the Punjab Paramedics Alliance (PPA) for the service structure which they claimed had been pending for approval for many years.

They said they had put demands for the service structure and regularization of contract and daily-wage employees of state-run hospitals in the province many years before the YDA’s demand.

The protestors said the government had accepted the demands regarding service structure of doctors, but it ignored their demands.

The paramedics marched from all government hospitals towards The Mall in groups on Monday morning and staged a sit-in outside the Club Road. Since no government representative came to negotiate with them, the paramedics continued their protest on the busiest road till the filing of this report at 10.30pm.

The business activities around half a kilometer area on The Mall from Chairing Cross to the Governor’s House remained suspended because of complete blockade of traffic from the morning till late in the night.

Many surgeries were also postponed due to the absence of technical and helping staff of operation theatres in all state-run health facilities of the provincial capital.

PPA Chairman Malik Munir said the government had sent late in the night two representatives -- Mayo Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Amjad Shahzad and Health Headquarters Director Dr Ahmad Afifi -- for negotiation, but they returned within a few minutes without giving a sympathetic hearing to protestors.

“For ending the sit-in we want the issuance of immediate notification for the implementation of service structure proposed for employees working from BPS 5 to 17,” he said, adding that other demands were also of great importance for paramedics.

They said that other demands included health professional allowance for paramedics and regularization of contract and daily-wage employees recruited by boards of management of teaching hospitals in Punjab.

He said that paramedics had decided to continue the agitation as no notification was issued in this regard till 10:30pm.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play