Bangladesh Medical Association (BMA) on Monday announced that doctors will observe a work abstention programme from 12 noon to 1pm on Wednesday across the country protesting the recent attacks on doctors. BMA Secretary General Dr M Iqbal Arsnal declared the one-hour programme on Monday at a press conference at BMA auditorium at the city’s Topkhana Road. The announcement came two days after an attack on an honorary doctor, Mominul, of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. The BMA leader said the doctors will go on work abstention from 12 noon to 1pm on May 14 wearing black badges in all the hospitals of the country. And they will form a human chain in the capital’s Shahbagh area at the same time. Besides, specialist physicians will go on work abstention in the private chambers from 5pm to 7pm on Thursday, he added. Dr Iqbal said the recent anarchy in the country’s hospitals unleashed at the instigation of a vested quarter. He said a total of 22 incidents of attack on doctors took place across the country in the last six months. But, he said, in many cases patients’ relatives were not involved in the attacks and not even in filing cases against the doctors. Addressing the press conference, BMA president Dr Mahmud Hasan said the incidents occurred in recent days spread throughout the country like a contagious disease. On Saturday night, some miscreants attacked Mominul and beat up him with sticks indiscriminately after he identified himself as a DMCH doctor, leaving him injured at Chankharpool in the city. — UNB, Dhaka.
