Cold weather adds to patients' miseries amid healthcare providers' protest.

KARACHI -- The intense cold wave sweeping across the province for the past few days has compounded the miseries of poor patients reporting at public sector hospitals where healthcare providers suspend outpatient department services for two hours in protest in the morning, it emerged on Monday.

According to sources, the worst sufferers among the patients are infants and the elderly who have to wait for a token in chilling weather for two hours.

'Yes, patients are suffering but there is little we can do. We try to attend maximum patients in the emergency department,' shared Dr Abdul Ghafoor Memon, associated with the Badin Civil Hospital as its chief medical officer.

The hospital staffers suspended work from 10am to 12pm at the facility, he added.

Sources at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) in Karachi said healthcare providers had been observing a daily strike for two hours from 8am till 10am during which patients had to wait in the lawn to get a token for OPD service.

'It's so unfortunate that the staffers didn't realise how this strike would affect small ailing children, especially newborns and infants, whose condition could deteriorate,' shared a woman who had brought her 10-year-old son to the facility.

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