LAHORE: Dozens of Pakistani doctors and nurses have launched a hunger strike demanding adequate protective equipment for frontline staff treating COVID-19 patients.
Health workers have complained for weeks that the country’s hospitals are suffering chronic shortages of safety gear, prompting the arrest of more than 50 doctors who called for more supplies in the city of Quetta earlier in April, AFP reported.
Frontline staff have been left vulnerable, with more than 150 medical workers testing positive for the virus nationwide, according to the Young Doctors’ Association (YDA) in worst-hit Punjab province.
The protesters have kept working in their hospitals while taking turns to demonstrate outside the health authority offices in the provincial capital Lahore.
The number of infections in the country is believed to be far higher because of a lack of testing in the impoverished country of 215 million.
(With inputs from agencies)
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