Around 200 young doctors on Friday ended their strike and resumed their duties in the outdoor patients departments (OPDs) and indoor wards of the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) and other government hospitals after acceptance of their demands including reinstatement of the suspended senior doctors of the PIC by the Punjab government on the Supreme Court orders.
President Young Doctors Association Dr Hamid Butt thanked the Apex court for ordering the Punjab government to withdraw the suspension orders issued after deaths of more than 150 heart patients from spurious medicines provided free of cost by the PIC. It may be added that the young doctors had locked OPDs of all teaching hospitals in the city on Wednesday, denying treatment to the OPDs and IPDs patients and blocked traffic on the Jail road. YDA had called the strike to press for the reinstatement of the senior doctors who had been removed from their positions.
Meanwhile the Judicial Commission set up to inquire about deaths caused by spurious drugs at the PIC has recorded statements of the World Health Organisation officials as witnesses. They included Syed Khalid Saeed Bokhari, Co-ordinator/Team leader of EMM, World Health Organisation, Michael Deats, Technical Officer, Medicines Anti-counterfeiting programme, Quality Assurance and Safety; Medicines, World Health Organisation, Mohammad Ahmad Bin Shahna, Regional Advisor, Essential Medicines & Pharmaceutical Policies and Trudi Hilton, Chief Pharmacist, International Health Partners.
Former Chief Executive PIC Professor Dr Muhammad Azhar appeared before the Commission and his supplementary statement was also recorded. The tribunal has appointed a Commission to visit the factory premises of Efroz Chemical Industries at Karachi to inspect the factory premises, production and storage facilities and examine the relevant records regarding procurement, manufacture, sale and dispatch of medicines produced in the factory.