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MIRPURKHAS, Oct 22: The doctors and paramedical staff of the Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital boycotted work and held a rally on Wednesday in protest against cut in the hospital’s budget and propaganda against the civil surgeon.
The protesters led by Dr Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, president of Pakistan Medical Association’s Mirpurkhas chapter, Nazeer Ahmed Detho and Ghulam Rasool Jalbani of Paramedical Staff Association marched on the main roads of the city, wearing black armbands and raising slogans, before the reached the press club.
The protesters said that the civil surgeon was feeling difficulty in meeting the needs of patients and hospital due to the district administration’s cut in the hospital’s budget.They deplored that some vested interests were demanding that the hospital administration pay them extortion money and provide them costly medicines free of cost while some influential people were supporting them.
They lamented that a propaganda campaign had been launched against Civil Surgeon Dr Roshan Ali Bhatti. The employees, including doctors, knew the civil surgeon very well and were supporting him due to his sympathetic behaviour towards employees and patients, he regretted.
They demanded that the government take notice and restore the budget of the hospital which was already approved.
Later, a joint meeting of paramedical staff and PMA was held at the civil hospital, which formed a committee comprising representatives of doctors and paramedical staff that would negotiate with the district administration to solve the issue.
Dr Roshan Ali Bhatti said that he was being forced to go on leave and blamed some government officials for helping spread the propaganda and the smear campaign.
Mirpurkhas DCO Abdul Rahim Soomro said that many complaints had been received about shortage of medicines and provision of substandard diet to patients. He had appointed a committee to purchase medicines and ensure that the patients received proper diet.
FLOUR MILLS: The chairman of the vigilance committee of Food Department, Shahnawaz Magsi, warned on Wednesday that if the flour samples taken during surprise visits to flourmills were found substandard, the mills would be closed and their wheat quota would be cancelled.
Mr Magsi said at a press conference that he found out after surprise visits to many flour mills that the mills were supplying substandard flour to market. The samples had been sent to laboratories to ascertain their quality, he said.
He said that the mills would be supplied quota of wheat according to the population of the district and the quota would be raised.
The government had fixed flour price at Rs22 per kilogram at flour mill, Rs23.50 per kg ex-flour mill and flour at chakki at Rs24.50 per kg, he said.
He said that hoarding and sale of flour at higher rates were creating problems and dismissed reports of shortage of wheat in the province.
He appealed to people to point out hoarders and profiteers so that the government could take legal action against them and directed the officers of food department to inform him about the population of the district so that its wheat quota could be raised.
