LAHORE: In order to block the roads leading to Dr Tahirul Qadri's headquarters in Model Town, the overzealous Shahbaz-government placed containers even on the roads connecting Model Town with one of the city's main public health facilities, making it impossible for ambulances to reach Jinnah Hospital.

Patients faced a great inconvenience because of the barricaded road as ambulances were denied entry to the hospital. In several cases, patients were put on a stretcher at the point of barricade to bring them to hospital's emergency.

Besides the Jinnah Hospital, access to several private hospitals in Model Town, Faisal Town and Garden Town was denied because of the blockade.

Several attendants of the patients were seen exchanging words with policemen and asking them why Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif ordered the blockade on Aug 7, three days before Dr Qadri's call for observing martyrs' day in Model Town.

"I must say it is criminal to block the approach to a major hospital," Azeem Rafiq, who brought his ailing mother to the Jinnah Hospital in the ambulance, told Dawn. "It never happens in the civilized world. My mother is a blood pressure and diabetic patient."

He said as his mother's condition deteriorated on Thursday morning, he arranged an ambulance and left home for Jinnah Hospital. When they arrived at Akbar Chowk, he found the crossing barricaded. "I requested a policeman there to allow the ambulance to cross over but he asked me to take another approach to the hospital. Maulana Shaukat Ali Road was choked because of influx of vehicles. It took the ambulance 30 minutes to cover a two kilometre stretch to the hospital," he said.

"Is there any saner voice in the Punjab government that could tell the chief executive not to block the approach to the health facilities? Or the fear of Qadri's protest has left those at the helm mindless to the sufferings of the patient," another patient, Shafiq said.

A policeman deployed at Jinnah Hospital Road said about the blockade: "We have orders".

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2014