KARACHI: Doctors continue to be targeted in Karachi with 5 doctors having lost their lives since the start of the New Year. Afraid for their own lives, the messiahs have now taken to the streets in protest.
“We have written to everyone, from the Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif, to the Prime Minsiter, the President and all the Sindh government officials including the Governor, the Chief Minister, to every official, but no one replied except the DG Rangers,” Dr. Qaiser Sajjad of the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) told Geo News.
The frequency with which doctors are being targeted in Karachi continues to rise. In the last ten years 127 have been killed, 17 of those were killed last year while in the first month of 2015 four have already been silenced forever.
Due to the lack of government interest in the rising number of kidnappings and target killing of doctors, the Sindh Doctors Welfare Association (SDWA) organized a protest on Monday during which doctors boycott out-patient departments (OPD) at government hospitals and members of the SWDA also kept their private clinics closed for the day.
By profession, doctors strive to save lives but with the rising number of attacks against their professional brethren their grievances are also valid. The SWDA maintains that there is nobody to hear their plight therefore the association is left with no choice but to protest as the law enforcement agencies have failed to protect them.
ExodusPakistan has been witnessing an exodus of highly skilled workers for years. Engineers, technicians, toctors and pilots have often left Pakistan for better opportunities abroad. However, with the rising targeting of doctors in the country, the flight being witnessed today is not for a better opportunity but simply to stay alive.
Ultimate LosersKarachi is the destination for thousands of patients from interior Sindh as well as other provinces of Pakistan who travel hundreds of kilometers to seek treatment. Whether doctors go on strike or leave the country out of fear, ultimately it is the patients who lose out.
Speaking to Geo News, patients who had traveled from Quetta, Balochistan to seek treatment in Karachi say they are helpless. Others from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prayed that the government should fulfill the doctor’s just demands.
Doctors DemandsFollowing their protest on Monday, doctors associations including the PMA held a session which ended with a list of demands. The doctors have decided to give the government 15 days to resolve the issues to safeguard the lives of those who are forced to execute their duties under constant fear. It has also been demanded that the government compensate families of the deceased doctors with a minimum of Rs. 10 million per doctor. Additionally, it has been demanded that doctors be issued arms licenses and permits allowing them to carry weapons as they move around.
In a city littered with a plethora of CCTV cameras and law enforcement agencies armed with modern electronic gadgets, the continued targeting of doctors raises a big question mark on the capability of those tasked with protecting the lives and property of citizens.
The city’s top cop, AIG Ghullam Qadir Thebo has assured that the murderers will be brought to justice. Until his promise delivers, results doctors continue to live in fear.