Do not hold patients hostage, use other means of protest: Health minister tells doctors

The health minister has urged doctors, for the sake of patients, to use other forms of protest instead of going on strikes.

“My position is clear. I said it before also that it is not right for doctors to go on strike while their patients suffer,” Mohammed Nasim said on Sunday.

He was replying to a question on a protest at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.

Operations at the medical university had been suspended for an hour on Sunday morning following an altercation between an anaesthetist and a surgeon.

Pro-Vice Chancellor Prof Sharfuddin Ahmed told bdnews24.com that surgeries had been “disrupted between 9am and 10am”.

The health minister’s attention was drawn later in the afternoon when he was interacting with the journalists at a function where the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) awarded him with the “JICA President” award for Bangladesh’s successes in polio eradication, vaccination and filarial control.

Nasim said he had no knowledge of the BSMMU agitation.

But he suggested doctors should choose more benign forms of protests such as the formation of human chains to draw attention to grievances.

“You should not let your patients suffer. Doctors have a very sensitive place; it is my request that they cease all agitation as soon as possible,” he said.