SUKKUR: Doctors of Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College postponed several scheduled surgeries and boycotted routine work at outpatient department of civil hospital, the college’s teaching hospital, on Monday as they went on strike over acute lack of facilities at the institution for healthcare officials as well as patients.

The striking doctors led by Dr Mohammad Rafiq Memon, Dr Imamuddin Baloch, Dr Azhar Ali Shah and others told journalists that they had sent a joint application to the hospital’s medical superintendent (MS) and informed him about the dismal working conditions at the hospital but he failed to move into action and set things right.

They said that electricity supply went off during a surgery at main operation theatre at about 11.40am on Aug 31 and power generator had been out of order for over a week. They informed the MS but he did nothing, then they reported it to Sukkur commissioner as well as sessions judge and got the power supply restored through their personal contacts with Sepco officials, they said.

They said that air conditioners in the OT room were not working adequately, tables were dilapidated, lighting was inadequate, most of the gowns and dresses were torn up, soap was unavailable, drainage system was not working and there was only one washbasin.

They informed the hospital administration several times but nothing was done, they said.

They said that one day RMO Dr Salahuddin Ujjan entered the operation theatre, started shouting at them and used abusive language in the presence of paramedics.

MS Dr Abdul Aziz Thebo rejected the doctors’ complaints as baseless and alleged that the striking doctors often shirked their work and slipped away to run their private clinics. Doctors and professors did not spend full time teaching students at GMMMC nor they sat in OPD but they started creating fuss whenever they were asked about their work, he said.

He said the sessions judge had taken notice of the state of affairs at the hospital and directed the commissioner and assistant commissioner to submit a report.

The government has provided state of the art machinery to the civil hospital to facilitate poor patients who visit the facility from remote areas of interior of Sindh and Balochistan but they get disappointed with doctors who refer them to their private clinics or the private hospitals where they sit as consultants.

Besides, many patients are unethically advised by doctors of government hospitals to have costly treatment or surgery at private hospitals.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2018