Razzi
MPA (400+ posts)
Read this for ur kind informtion
Events of yesterday night and today have been
very sad. I do not affiliate myself with the YDA
( young doctors association), but I am a doctor
and I am young. I love my patients, I work day
and night for them. For my patients I neglect my
family, days pass by without even making a phone
call to my mother to say hello because for me
human life is sacred and when a poor patient
surrenders to my judgment for his life, nothing
else in the world is more important.
Today everyone is cursing doctors- media,
government and above all the public. I have been
hiding from police for past one day, I have been
listening to insults imposed by the public and I
have been listening to THE BIG FAT LIE presented
on a gold plate to an already frustrated public, by
media and the Government.
I am writing this note to narrate my personal
experience at Mayo Hospital Lahore so that at
least my friends and family would know some
ground realities. I hope after reading this you will
stop hating doctors, specially young doctors.
WHAT IS OPD?
YDA called a strike, closing the OPD. I am sorry to
say, our media is as uneducated as our public.
From what media says, I get an impression that
nobody has a slightest idea what OPD is.
Therefore, I feel appropriate to explain to you
what OPD is.
OPD/ Out Patient Department serves the purpose
of catering patients with ailments which are not
serious or which do not pose a threat to patient’s
life. Doctors at OPD give patients a prescription or
suggest investigations. Patients then get their
medicine, go home and use it.
In my weekly schedule I only have to go to OPD
for 2 days, that too from 10 30am to 12 noon.
Considering the fact that I have to spend 5 hours
in ward on regular days, once a week I am on call
for 24 hours( which actually is a 30 hr nonstop
duty) and once a week I have to do a 12 hour
Emergency ( day or night), OPD is a very minor
portion of my duty.
HOW THINGS WORKED WHEN OPD WAS
CLOSED? MEDIA HOAX!
When OPD was closed all the OPD patients turned
up at the emergency. At emergency department it
is our purpose to treat ailments which pose a
threat to patient’s life. We expanded our purpose
and in addition to treating serious patients at
emergency, we treated OPD patients as well.
Meaning we increased our work load by two fold
at emergency and did not refuse treatment to any
patient. The truth is that patients were being
treated as usual, the only inconvenience they had
was that they had to walk from the OPD building
to the Emergency building.
Media failed to show how hard doctors were
working to cover up the closure of OPD. Instead
media posed as if patients were going through
extreme suffering and were dying due to the YDA
strike- an unjust accusation. Lives were being
saved and operations were being carried out the
entire time. What public failed to understand was
that media showed them only one side of the
coin. Thousands of patients get well everyday due
to our hardwork, hundreds have big words of
praise for us. Media would never show a patient
praising doctors. What they showed were a
handful of frustrated and uneducated individuals
who blamed doctors for their own mistakes or
who did not understand what had happened with
their patient? I had seen relatives of an 85 year
old patient who died of end stage kidney disease
cursing the doctor when he passed away, the
height of their pathetic mindset was that they
refused to get dialysis when they were advised to
do so, in the end they were putting the blame on
doctors and calling them killers. Everyone wants
to blame someone for their loss and the Pakistani
uneducated population finds pleasure in putting
the blame on doctors. Media manipulates this
mindset to increase their ratings and earn money.
I had witnessed the protest by the patients the
media was recording. It comprised only of 10
women, probably paid by the Government to
scream against the doctors. That tiny display was
posed to be a Punjab wide protest and that video
slide was repeatedly shown on tv all day long.
KHADIM E AALA TRIES TO BE A HERO!
Our beloved Khadim e aala continued to threaten
doctors. He did not recognize the effort we were
putting in to cover up for the OPD strike. Using
the media he turned the public against us.
Yesterday night a raid was done by Punjab Police
at Mayo Hospital on his orders. The police went
inside the Emergency, sabotaged and arrested the
doctors on duty- Doctors who were working to
save human lives. As doctors at emergency were
arrested there was no one left there to save lives.
The disorder which was created by actions of
police at Mayo and Services Hospitals cost some
very precious lives which the media very
conveniently blamed the doctors for. Media again
failed to show that the doctors who were
supposed to save these lives were actually either
under police custody or were being beaten by
them. I leave it up to you to decide who is
responsible for these lives. Few female
classfellows of mine were beaten brutally by the
police. Media did not show that. One doctor has
died due to the beating, media is silent.
A SUCCESSFUL POLICE OPERATION? ARE
PATIENTS BEING SAVED TODAY? DID ARMY SAVE
THE DAY?
Today media is telling us that yesterday’s actions
were a success. OPD has been opened.
Emergency is working. Lives are being saved.
Army has come to the rescue. Everthing is good
on paper.
Let me tell you friends, everything was going fine
yesterday. Nothing is happening in hospitals
today. One Army doctor is sitting in the surgical
emergency. No doctor in medical emergency, only
2 senior doctors in medical ICU. Handful of army
doctors in OPD. Yesterday atlest 30 doctors were
operating in medical emergency, same number of
doctors on surgical floor. Operations were being
carried out. Lives were being saved. Were patients
being managed more appropriately yesterday or
today? The only thing Government has achieved is
that everything is functioning on paper. Patients
will die today. The Government and media is
responsible for their lives.
WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING ALL THIS TIME?
On Friday evening at 8pm I started my medical
emergency duty. I finished at 8am Saturday
morning, went straight to the ward and carried on
my duty till 1 pm. Sunday was off, went on a road
trip to Gujranwala. When I came back everyone
was terrorized at the hostel after what had
happened at Services Hospital. As soon as news
came that police had raided Mayo Hospital I was
advised to flee. I spent half the night on road, the
other half at my aunt’s place. Today morning
despite being advised by my cousin and aunt to
not to go to the Hospital, I went. I went for the
love of my patients. Hiding from the police I
reached my ward. A secret round was carried out.
Patients who were stable were discharged.
Doctors who were on call were asked to stay.
They were asked to stay hidden in the Professor’s
office. Hidden from Police… Hidden from our
angry co workers. Rest of us were advised to go
home as hospital was not safe for us.
WHAT IS MY SIN?
Today being a doctor and being young has
become a sin. If you come across police, they will
arrest you. If u come across public, they will curse
you and you cant treat your patients because
hospitals are no longer safe. I request you all that
please recognize the hardwork we have been
doing. Please recognize who is responsible for the
patient’s suffering. Please don’t call us butchers.
We have worked really hard to become doctors…
we did not spend all those nights studying to be
bullied by media, government and public. Have
mercy on us. I am not a member of YDA… I am
just a young doctor who wants to treat his
patients and who wants all this crazy drama to
end.
Ihsan-ul-haq minhas
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