ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: Two doctors were injured during a scuffle between two groups at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) on Saturday, police said.
The administration called the police who arrived at the hospital but remained outside to maintain law and order.
The Young Doctors Association (YDA) had given a call for a strike against manhandling of three doctors by gunmen of a customs department superintendent and the principal of Frontier Medical College Abbottabad on Thursday.
On Saturday, senior doctors from different departments accompanied by some outsiders, including a former member of the Federal Government Services Hospital's YDA unit, intercepted the striking doctors when they reached the operation theatre of Pims to close it. As a result, a scuffle broke out between them.
The Pims doctors approached Amjad Chaudhry, who was acting as the executive director in place of Prof Riaz Ahmed Warraich (on leave), and complained about the presence of outsiders in the hospital. The doctors said the outsiders had been brought by their rivals to counter the strike.
In the meantime, their rivals reached the office of the ED where another scuffle broke out during which Dr Taqi Anwar of the gastro and Dr Ijaz of the ENT departments sustained injuries. The windowpanes of the ED office were also smashed.
There was tension in the hospital from around 9:30am to 4:30pm when the hospital administration arranged a meeting between the two groups.
President of YDA's Pims chapter Dr Asfadyar Khan told Dawn: "We have no difference with any of the doctors who intercepted us today." The matter was resolved peacefully despite the fact they had brought weapons and entered into a scuffle with us," he added.
The YDA president demanded that the gunmen who had manhandled the doctors outside the VIP ward of the hospital should apologise. It also demanded that the courtesy centre in the hospital should be closed because it was promoting the VIP culture.
He said all staff of Pims, mother and child and Islamabad hospitals would observe a strike from Monday if their two demands were not fulfilled. However, the emergency wards will remain operational, he added.
Spokesman for Pims, Dr Waseem Khawaja, said the issue between the two groups had been resolved.
When contacted, the acting ED, Amjad Chaudhry, said the hospital administration was trying to resolve all the issues. The administration is in contact with the superintendent customs and the principal to ask their gunmen to apologise to the doctors, he added.
Besides, the ministry concerned has also been requested to induct 100 security guards in the hospital. Mr Chaudhry added that no gunman would be allowed into the premises of the hospital in future and security would be provided to VIPs by the hospital guards.