FAISALABAD: Doctors have threatened to stop examination of the Covid-19 patients at private clinics and hospitals if the district administration continues with [allegedly] harassing them on the pretext of implementation of SOPs.

The office-bearers of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) in a meeting with its President Soulat Nawaz in the chair criticised the district administration for its failure to ensure implementation of the Covid-related SOPs in other sectors.

The meeting participants said the number of Covid-19 patients was surging in the district with every passing day and the administration was doing nothing but to complete the file work. They said ignoring the Covid-19 threat, the doctor community had been extending services to suspected patients. However, the employees of the district administration had started visiting the clinics of such doctors, asking them for Covid-19 tests and forcing them to close the clinics till the result of the tests.

To avoid harassment, they said it was an easy solution for the doctors to stop examination of the suspects.

They said one could observe that people were neither wearing masks nor maintaining social distance due to the alleged poor management of the administration. Shopping malls were also violating the SOPs with impunity.

Dr Muhammad Irfan, the PMA Faisalabad secretary, said: “We have been striving to save the lives of masses but the indifferent attitude of the administration is forcing us to stop examination of the Covid-19 suspects. We cannot tolerate humiliation by the district administration employees in the name of Covid-19 tests. It’s an open secret that what sort of facilities are being given to doctors engaged in the examination and treatment of the Covid-19 patients.”

“The Covid-19 patients are rapidly surging in Faisalabad and this can be gauged from the fact that two wards at Allied Hospital have now been completely converted into Corona wards,” he said adding the situation was deteriorating due to poor performance of the administration.

Dr Irfan said the PMA meeting resolved that doctors would retaliate if anybody tried to disgrace them. He asked the district administration to conduct the Covid-19 tests of guards and employees of the shopping malls to contain spread of the virus.

An official of the district administration said doctors were not being harassed rather “we had been trying to save the people from the deadly virus.”

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2020