MARDAN: The members of Young Doctors Association at Mardan Medical Complex on Tuesday protested torturing of their colleagues by relatives of a patient.

The protesting doctors demanded of the authorities to take action against the people responsible for the incident. Wearing black armbands and carrying placards inscribed with different slogans, the protesters were led by YDA president Dr Adnan Khan.

The protesting doctors said that their colleague Dr Sajjad was tortured and harassed on Sunday by relatives of a patient when he was referred to Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar in precarious condition.

They said that the doctor referred the patient to Peshawar hospital due to non-availability of the required health facilities. The decision angered the relatives of the patients, they said, adding that they exchanged hot words with the doctor and then harassed him, which was not a good trend.

The protesting members of YDA demanded of the authorities concerned to take action against the relatives of the patient within 48 hours otherwise they would expand their protest to other parts of the province to press the government for fulfillment of their demands.

They urged government to increase strength of police personnel on the premises of Mardan Medical Complex for the security of doctors and other medical staff. They said that political interference should also be ended in the affairs of the hospital so that they could work without any pressure.

The protesting doctors also asked Provincial Minister for Health Shahram Khan Tarakai to establish forensic laboratory in Bacha Khan Medical College for carrying out postmortems there.

They said that carrying out postmortems in emergency building of MMC was creating problems for the hospital staff.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2016