When all is said and done it is the patients who suffer most, writes Asif Chauhdary

Scores of patients are still waiting for action by the Punjab government against doctors who allegedly closed critical care departments and denied treatment to them at the public sector hospitals during the 37-day strike which led to the worst ever health crisis.  Salma Bibi, who was diagnosed with Hepatitis C two years ago, is one such victim who sought treatment in the teaching hospitals time and again, but was turned away. At present, the health complications she developed during the doctors’ strike have restricted her within the four walls of her house.

Salma could not get treatment from any public sector health facilities in the first one and a half years after the diagnosis due to financial constraints. Later, she managed to approach the administration of the Lahore General Hospital when a private doctor warned her that hepatitis C may damage her liver if treatment was delayed any further. The LGH doctors enrolled her under the prime minister’s programme for prevention and control of hepatitis. The doctors advised her vaccination for hepatitis C for a period of six months.

Unfortunately, she was unable to complete the course due to the strike. For Salma, the LGH was the only option since her treatment was extremely expensive and not affordable for her at a private hospital. “I could only purchase three injections from the market by borrowing money from my neighbours and relatives,” she says.

According to her, missing one shot of the vaccination meant that the chain of immunity was broken. Not only did this delay the treatment, but also added to the patient’s misery since the after effects of each dose was quite painful. She was also denied Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test during the strike, a facility available at the city’s only health facility, Jinnah Hospital, located at the 45 minutes distance from her residence which she had to visit almost every day.

Residents of Ferozepur Road, Kahna Nau, Muhammad Sajjad’s 55-year-old mother Sabira Latif is also under treatment these days at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore. She suffers from multiple problems like jaundice, severe stomach pain, skin allergy, uncontrolled blood pressure and blood sugar.

Her health started deteriorating in the last week of March after the doctors of three major tertiary care hospitals, namely Services Hospital, Sir Ganga Ram and Lahore General Hospital, refused to attend to her despite her son’s repeated requests. He later called another doctor and informed him about the deteriorating health of his mother but the doctor refused to admit her in hospital due to the strike and advised him to visit a private health facility.

“I took my mother back home in disappointment,” he says, adding that it was next to impossible to even get any emergency medical help since the doctors had locked the emergency departments, operation theatres, indoor and outdoor departments and even the diagnostic rooms of various health institutions.

Fortunately, once the strike ended, he called Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Prof Dr Javed Akram who admitted his mother at Jinnah Hospital. Since then, she is under treatment at the health facility, but complications have developed due to the delay in treatment. So far, she has not recovered, and her health is failing gradually.