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HEALTH-VIRUS-PAKISTAN
Pakistani doctors launch hunger strike over virus protection fears
LAHORE, Pakistan, April 25, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Dozens of Pakistani doctors
and nurses have launched a hunger strike demanding adequate protective
equipment for frontline staff treating coronavirus patients, the lead
organiser of the protest said Saturday.
Health workers have complained for weeks that the country’s hospitals are
suffering chronic shortages of safety gear, prompting the arrest of more than
50 doctors who called for more supplies in the city of Quetta earlier this
month.
Frontline staff have been left vulnerable, with more than 150 medical
workers testing positive for the virus nationwide, according to the Young
Doctors’ Association (YDA) in worst-hit Punjab province.
The protesters have kept working in their hospitals while taking turns to
demonstrate outside the health authority offices in provincial capital
Lahore.
“We do not intend on stopping until the government listens to our demands.
They have been consistently refusing to adhere to our demands,” said doctor
Salman Haseeb.
Haseeb heads the province’s Grand Health Alliance, which is organising the
protest, and he said he had not eaten since April 16.
“We are on the frontline of this virus and if we are not protected then
the whole population is at risk,” he told AFP.
The alliance said about 30 doctors and nurses were on hunger strike, with
up to 200 medical staff joining them each day for demonstrations.
Punjab’s health worker union are supporting the alliance and also
demanding adequate quarantine conditions for medical staff.
Nearly three dozen doctors, nurses and paramedics contracted the virus in
one hospital in the city of Multan, while seven members of a doctor’s family
were infected in Lahore, it added.
“We are simply demanding justice for our community,” said doctor and YDA
chairman Khizer Hayat.
Hospital staff would not escalate their protest by walking off the job, he
added.
Provincial health department officials told AFP that hospitals had now
been provided with adequate protection gear after an earlier “backlog” was
resolved.
Earlier this month the Punjab government announced that frontline workers
will be awarded a pay bonus and life insurance.
Almost half of the nearly 12,000 confirmed COVID-19 infections across
Pakistan have been recorded in Punjab.
The number of infections in the country is believed to be far higher
because of a lack of testing in the impoverished country of 215 million.
The Islamic holy month of Ramadan officially began in Pakistan on
Saturday, with concerns that the light restrictions imposed on mosque
gatherings will not stop a potentially rapid spread of the virus.
Frontline medical workers across the world have been grappling with short
supplies of vital safety equipment since the start of the pandemic.
BSS/AFP/MRU/1750hrs