Medical practitioners protest, submit memo

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 18

The Medical Practitioners Association, Punjab, today sat on a dharna outside the house of Cabinet Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu to press upon their long-pending demands.

The minister and medical practitioners had an argument while the memorandum was being submitted by the association.

The minister told them that now they were submitting their momorandum of demands but during Covid, patients either did not reach hospitals at all or reached late and due to the same, many patients lost their lives.

On the other hand, the medical practitioners said during Covid, doctors posted in rural areas were given duty in urban areas and dispensaries lacked staff and medicines. In such a situation, they managed to handle patients with whatever little help was available to them and they also motivated residents of villages for Covid tests and vaccination.

They said during the Vidhan Sabha elections, the minister had promised to solve their problems but even after passing of over four years, nothing had been done in this regard.

Earlier, they sat in a park at Kochhar Market and later moved towards the house of the minister but the police stopped them by putting barricades and only a few members were allowed to proceed further and submit memorandum to him.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Bali, state president of the association, said medical practitioners were working for the past 30-35 years in those areas where even government was unable to provide services.

“Before 1965, registration was done on the basis of experience but later it was stopped. Our main demand is that we should be allowed to practice on the basis of our experience so that we can continue our work peacefully. While we were handing over the memorandum to the MLA, he blamed us without knowing the ground realities,” said Dr Bali.

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