LAHORE, Nov 25: The police went an extra mile on Friday to thwart nurses’ agitation by ‘occupying’ the city’s major teaching hospitals early in the morning.
In order to counter the police strategy, a staff nurse (later identified as Ayesha Naseer) suffered minor neck injury when she jumped out of the first floor of the nursing hostel at Children’s Hospital to join the protest demonstration. The hospital administration had locked the nurses in the hostel.
The police officials, accompanied by hospitals’ senior management, locked the main gates of the nursing hostels and major health facilities like Children’s Hospital, Services Hospital, Mayo Hospital and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. They intensified patrol around the hospitals and even got power supply to hostels disconnected to prevent the nurses from joining the campaign, sources told Dawn.
The policemen repeated “Thursday’s demonstration” early on Friday at the state-run hospitals, Young Nursing Association President Rozeena said.
She alleged that the women police kept chasing the nurses in their hostels, main halls, rooms and on roads. The hide-and-seek continued for a couple of hours before the nurses, mostly from other parts of Punjab, hit the busy thoroughfare facing the press club, she said.
The police presence and blaring hooters on the premises of some hospitals created panic among the doctors, nurses and other staff besides the patients and their attendants, said Dr Rana Sohail, who heads the YDA Pakistan.
He said the Children’s and Services hospitals remained the main focus for the police as well as district management, where the meetings of the Young Nursing Association were organised before the launch of the movement.
A source said a Model Town circle DSP-led police team reached Children’s Hospital early in the morning and deployed theforce at entry and exit points. He said the police with the help of Children’s Hospital Managing Director Prof Dr Ahsan Waheed Rathore, nursing superintendent and other senior management functionaries locked the nursing hostel when the nurses were asleep.
The police, deployed at the hospital entrance, questioned and scanned the visitors including women and attendants. Dr Rathore and other admin officials were also present there to help the police identify the nurses.Many of the nurses, said sources, managed to escape and join the protest. Some of them left the institution using small entry/exit points and by scaling boundary walls.
Dr Rathore denied allegations, saying the police were present outside the hospital and were on special duty assigned to them to stop the nurses from marching towards the CM House.
The administration, he said, had closed the main gates of the hospital for security. He expressed his ignorance about locking of the hostels.