LARKANA: On the call of Grand Health Alliance (GHA), paramedical staff, staff nurses and lady health workers on the 33rd day continued boycott of their government OPD duties at Chandka Medical College Hospital (CMCH) here on Wednesday.
The CMCH consists of four blocks of the hospital including Civil Hospital, Chandka Teaching Hospital, Children’s Hospital and Sheikh Zayed Women’s Hospital due to which laboratory, x-ray, ultrasound operation theaters and other departments remained shut and poor incoming patients suffered very badly. The employees took out a large protest rally from Civil Hospital to the Jinnah Bagh and held a sit-in where they also protested by shouting slogans against the rulers.
On this occasion, their leaders Shahi Khan Jagirani, Zulfiqar Ali Sahto, Qasim Jaskani, Rubina Shabnam, Ghulam Hussain Jalbani, Qaiser Luhar, Ghulam Hussain Langah, Dilmarad Jagirani, Kamil Sheikh and others said that the People’s Party is ruling the country, specially Sindh, since years on the slogan of the bread, clothes and home and its ministers, advisors and henchmen are living beyond their means but they do not care for those who take care of their lives.
It is obvious that the government of Sindh is not a democratic government but a dictatorial government as each department is entrusted with a king or queen and its head has been given full authority to make decisions of his own free will due to which health department employees are on roads since over a month, the said.
The leaders said that we are not orphans but united and will never forgive our just demands hence our struggle will continue till acceptance of our demands, they declared. They urged the powers that be to accept their demands forthwith to relieve the patients of agony they are going through due to the lethargic attitude of the rulers, they alleged.
Meanwhile, hundreds of poor patients that arrived here from distant places of the region returned empty handed without getting any medical support for their ailments. Private medical centers and clinics are doing roaring business due to closure of public sector health care facilities across the province.
On the other hand, Deputy Medical Superintendent of CMCH Children Hospital Dr. Hassan Chandio claimed that 28,440 children were examined in October despite strikes who were suffering from various diseases out of whom 2022 were admitted for treatment, 1308 x-rays were carried out and 559 ultrasounds were also done. No cleanliness was carried out of the CMCH wards which were full of bad smell everywhere.
Poverty-stricken patients complained that it’s their right to get medical care in this age but they have been running from pillar to post without any treatment for a month. They said they cannot afford costly treatment and medicines at private clinics. They said that the government must engage with the agitators and decide the issue which should not linger on anymore costing lives of innocent people. They said the government is disbursing huge salaries to the employees who are on the roads for a long time without performing their duties which is highly shameful.