KUALA LUMPUR – Doctors who joined the #HartalDoktorKontrak movement in Kuala Lumpur Hospital will be under police investigation for violating standard operating procedures outlined in the lockdown rules.
Dang Wangi police chief Mohamad Zainal Abdullah said this is because “during the movement control order period no one is allowed to gather”.
‘No one is allowed to gather or take part in any assembly at any place for any reason – be it religious, social, sports, wedding, or cultural reasons – without permission from the health director-general.
“This is stipulated in Rule 10 of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Regulations 2021,” he said in a statement.
Earlier, Sg Buloh Hospital and Kuala Lumpur Hospital doctors who participated in the #HartalDoktorKontrak movement today faced police intimidation.
Outside Sg Buloh Hospital, even media personnel were questioned by a man who identified himself as a Special Branch officer, and asked what was on the placards the medical officers were carrying.
There were two groups of doctors who staged a walkout at Sg Buloh Hospital.
Two medical officers clad in black from the first group attempted to answer questions by the media, before what seemed to be a plainclothes police officer shouted at them rudely to go away.
The doctors, who were clearly shaken by the incident, left the scene and refused to answer any more questions by the media.
When another group of doctors staged their walkout half an hour later at the same hospital, a medical officer managed to answer brief questions from the press.
The same plainclothes police officer also questioned the doctor before media personnel alerted the doctor that the person was not with the press.
Later another plainclothes officer placed his camera near the faces of the doctors and said: “We are going to compound all of them.”
Meanwhile at Kuala Lumpur Hospital, junior medical officers staged a walkout but found themselves facing police officers from Dang Wangi who ordered the doctors to stop gathering.
In Seremban’s Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital, police seemed more lenient with the medical officers on strike. Authorities gave the doctors 10 minutes to perform their walkout.
After the allotted time, police officers asked the doctors to disperse.
However, the same could not be said for the police officers tasked with observing the walkout at the Covid-19 low risk treatment and quarantine centre in MAEPS Serdang.
@HartalDoktorKontrak tweeted an hour ago that the doctors in MAEPS were threatened with police arrest. – The Vibes, July 26, 2021