GUJRAT: More than 400 private hospitals 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 had been 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 had 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 on Monday in case of non-acceptance of their demands. There would be a shutter-down strike across the district.

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 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 Hippocratic oath taken by the medical fraternity.

He also asked the medical officers and paramedics to continue with their government duty by not indulging in an unjustified call of strike.

The PMA president told Dawn that around 450 private hospitals observed a complete strike in the district. He said none of the district administration, FBR or provincial government had approached to solve the issue and the tax authorities had not even returned the computers and other records of his hospital.

He said a sit-in would be held in the next phase in front of the Gujrat FBR office on Monday.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2019