LAHORE: After 13th day of non-stop strike of Punjab Young Doctors, Scores of angry patients staged a sit in outside hospitals in Lahore, Aaj news reported.

On the other hand, Punjab government has assigned 400 new female doctors to replace the old ones who were not attending the patients.

According to our correspondent, Many of the new doctors have came to the hospitals after receiving online appointment letters.

Despite the deadline from the government, YDA are still protesting and warned the government against taking any action against protesting doctors and vowed to resist government’s efforts to “suppress” them.

Section 144 has also been imposed at all public hospitals on the directive of the provincial government along with deployment of heavy contingents of riot police.

Earlier until yesterday, The strike was a nightmare for the poor patients and their families. The number of patients in emergency wards has increased manifold since there was no doctors available in the OPDs.

Besides, Special Assistant to the Chief Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique said that the government was still pursuing negotiations with the doctors and had no plans to clamp down on the protests.

He said the government could not afford the doctors’ demands for raised allowances and pay, but was willing to make the administrative changes they wanted. “We have worked it out and there isn’t any category [in the budget] from where we can cut funds and give them to doctors. We will ask the doctors to give up their financial demands for now. The administrative changes they proposed in the service structure can be accommodated,” he said.

Talking to reporters at his camp office at Minar-i-Pakistan, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif called upon the doctors to end their strike and said that their salaries were better than those of doctors in other provinces. He said the doctors’ strike had jeopardised the many good healthcare programmes initiated by the Punjab government for the poor.