KOHAT: The tehsil municipal administration on Friday removed illegal cabins and other structures blocking the entrance to the sasta bazaar here.

The action was launched on the directives of deputy commissioner Furqan Ashraf.

TMA enforcement officer Mohammad Vaqas along with the staff demolished the cabins and huts, which were operated by ‘influential’ people for a monthly rent of Rs15,000.

Tehsil municipal officer Amin Gul told Dawn that in the second phase of the operation, all pushcarts in the main bazaar, from the High School No 2 to the chicken market, and other areas would be shifted to the sasta bazaar to address the issue of frequent traffic jams in these bazaars.

ACTION SOUGHT: The people have demanded action against the management of private hospitals in Kohat for fleecing patients.

They alleged that physicians and eye specialists at their private clinics recommended unnecessary tests and forced patients to get them done from their laboratories, and prescribed medicines that were only available at their pharmacies.

The people said private hospitals charged high fees for MRI and CT scans because these facilities were often not available in the KDA Teaching Hospital and Liaquat Memorial Hospital, the government-run facilities.

Mr Farrukh, a local, claimed that a private doctor prescribed him some tests and asked him to get them done from his own laboratory, or he won’t accept the test reports of any other lab. He added when he took the doctor’s medicines prescription to a medical store he was told that these drugs were not available there.

The people alleged that a heart specialist charged them extra for X-Rays done at his hospital. They added some eye specialists were operating their own glasses and medicine shops.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2022