LAHORE, June 19: Scores of patients were denied treatment at outpatient departments and even at emergencies of public sector hospitals due to a strike by young doctors on Tuesday.

The young doctors had ‘locked’ OPDs of teaching hospitals to express their anger over delay in issuing a notification of service structure in accordance with the draft submitted by a 10-member committee notified by the Punjab government on May 7.

The strike added miseries to the patients specially those who had come from far-flung districts of the province. An elderly man, Amjad Ali, brought his 22-year-old son Fahad from Kot Radha Kishan Road, Kasur, to General Hospital. Fahad, an FSc student, had been advised an immediate surgery by a doctor of their native city after an ultrasound report found a 10mm stone in his right kidney.

Both Amjad and his son waited for five hours outside the OPD, but it was closed by young doctors. The doctors at the emergency also refused them admission owing to an extraordinary rush of patients.

Amjad, extremely disappointed over the deplorable role of young doctors, said a striking doctor turned a deaf ear to repeated requests of his son for treatment.

Several other patients and their relatives narrated similar stories at public hospitals during young doctors’ strike. The most affected among them were those who visited the Punjab Institute of Cardiology and Children’s Hospital.

YDA activists took frequent rounds of OPDs at their respective health facilities throughout the day to ensure suspension of health care to the patients.

Representatives of the Young Doctors Association vowed to continue strike till the acceptance of their demands.