LAHORE: Doctors, nurses and paramedics on Tuesday blocked main roads of the city in front of the state-run teaching hospitals and lodged a protest against the Medical Teaching Institutions (MTI) Act.

On the second consecutive day, they staged sit-ins on Jail Road and Ferozpur Road by blocking traffic for some hours.

Earlier, scores of doctors, nurses and paramedics under the banner of the Grand Health Alliance had lodged a protest demonstration at Faisal Chowk on The Mall on Monday when the GHA leaders came to know that the government was going to get the MTI Act passed from the Punjab Assembly.

They had staged a sit-in there for some hours and cleared the road for traffic making an announcement to extend the scope of agitation to force the Punjab government to withdraw the Act.

Particularly, the situation remained tense on Tuesday on Ferozpur Road where the health professionals occupied the main artery outside the Lahore General Hospital and the Children’s Hospital.

A massive traffic jam was witnessed on around 10-km stretch of Ferozpur Road from Kalma Chowk to Nishtar Colony where hundreds of vehicles got stuck for many hours due to the protest.

Many ambulances also remained stuck in traffic when the protesting employees refused to leave the venue of protest.

The traffic police deputed there could not make alternative arrangements because the medics had not made the protest plan public.

Similarly, the sit-in on Jail Road intensified problems for motorists and students of educational institutions when the doctors and nurses kept on occupying the thoroughfare for a couple of hours.

Earlier on Tuesday morning, leaders of the Young Doctors Association Punjab took round of the wards and various sections and locked many of them forcibly to instigate their colleagues to join protest on roads.

The YDA leaders allegedly misbehaved with senior medics at the OPDs of the Services, Jinnah Hospital, the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and the Lahore General Hospital when they refused to spare their training students [for protest].Meanwhile, the health department officials and the GHA office-bearers met at the Civil Secretariat and held a dialogue.

The GHA leaders asked the health authorities to call a meeting of the commission constituted by the Lahore High Court last year to resolve the [MTI Act] matter.

They said the GHA would not accept the MTA Act and react more forcefully if it was implemented without addressing their demands.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2020