January 2010
The stories of ill treatment by doctors in our country are not new but this issue is hyped in the last few months after our cricket star Wasim Akram’s wife Huma Wasim and a three year old child Imanae; the only daughter of a couple, were killed due to mere negligence of doctors in ‘posh’ hospitals of the country.
Huma Wasim had a brain tumor which was being treated at the National Hospital in DHA, Lahore. A three member enquiry committee formed following her tragic death concluded that doctors in Lahore were unable to diagnose Huma’s problem for which her condition deteriorated. The doctors are also blamed for keeping her husband in darkness regarding the serious health of his wife to extract more money from him. When her condition got completely out of hand, she was referred to some hospital in Singapore but the air ambulance landed in Chennai Apollo Hospital due to further complications. Eventually, she died.
Story of Imanae Malik began on November 29, second day of Eid-ul-Azha. The family had arrived all the way from England to celebrate Eid with their near and dear ones in Pakistan. Imanae spilled hot water on her wrist and was rushed to the Doctors Hospital by her parents at 3am in Johar Town, Lahore. According to Imanae’s father Mr.Aqeel Malik, the doctor on duty who was awoken from sleep instructed the nurse to inject four high potency injections to sedate the little angel; which was fatal. On the other hand, her parents were kept unaware of conditions that prevailed. Imanae was dead when the doctors referred her to Children’s Hospital without any documentation or ambulance. When Aqeel Malik and his wife reached the emergency ward of Fatima Memorial Hospital, they were told that their daughter had left the world about an hour ago. On their return back to Doctors Hospital, doctors and staff who had treated little Imanae, were absent and the management refused to handover their patient’s file and discharge slip to them. Moreover, the pitiful parents were threatened to leave the hospital immediately and keep their mouths shut after the incident that had ruined their home.
Imanae’s father led protests in Lahore for bringing those ‘butchers’ to justice. He said that these ‘Slaughter houses’ should be banned for their negligence. He has made public groups and pages on ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘Myspace’ for public awareness and support. This led public sharing of many other people’s experiences who had lost their loved ones at the hands of doctors in private or public hospitals. Some people are also of the view that the treatment in public hospitals has always been very poor but the issue is highlighted only when the elite class is affected by the ill treatment of doctors. Many cases still remain unnoticed.
Another case of doctors’ negligence left a member of National Assembly dead at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad. According to Dr. Altaf, the Executive Director of PIMS, Faiz Muhammad Khan (PML-N) was referred to PIMS hospital after being treated for four days at Ayub Medical Complex, Abbottabad. When brought to PIMS in a critical condition, he was shifted to the ‘private ward’ instead of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he was not treated for half an hour and at last succumbed to a heart attack. All these cases boosted each other and were reported on newspapers and television channels which gathered enough suspicion and sympathy of the public. Doctors Hospital’s pharmacy was immediately sealed while two doctors and a nurse at PIMS were also suspended for ultimate irresponsibility.
Pakistan Society of Anesthesiologists (PSA) has expressed concern over the growing incidents of deaths at the hands of paramedical staff at various hospitals across the country and demanded the government to take serious notice of the issue. The PSA also demanded the government not to allow any staff nurse in any case to inject an injection to the patients in the absence of the doctor.
A 20- year old student of engineering at Karachi University was fighting for his life at a local private hospital after being injected a false injection. According to General Secretary PSA Dr. Safia Zafar Siddiqui, the main reason behind these deaths was an injection called “transamin” which is being used to control bleeding. But when doctors prescribe transamin in illegible handwriting, the semiliterate person at the medical store gives another injection “tracrium” and again the staff nurse injects it without checking, which results in the death of an innocent patient.
Nonetheless, this does not happen in all the cases since all the patients are not taken to hospitals due to injurious bleeding. Cases of fatal treatment have also been reported in patients of cardiac arrest, diarrhea, child labour and surgeries that neither checked by doctors nor well-treated by staff nurses resulted in abandonment of limbs due to intense infections. Surprisingly enough, this profession is also pathetically used as a business where unprofessional people open private clinics in low profile areas to earn a living and drench innocent people to serious health problems.
The Holy Book Al Quran narrates…”whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind”(Al- Ma’ida:32). It is the duty of the doctor to supervise the staff and drugs being injected to the patient. Every faithful Muslim believes that life and death are in the hands of God but a doctor’s extreme negligence can not be justified with this belief since God has also ordered for dedication with medication and sincerity towards one’s duty.
Many such incidents have been reported earlier but some questions still arise. Why does our government wait for public protests to take action against extreme incidents? Do we have to come to roads with placards for all our issues? Does our society lack in morality and professionalism? Have we lost our integrity as a nation which indirectly effects all our institutions? In fact, we have not lost our moral standards as a nation which were clearly shown by our people during the earthquake tragedy of 8th October 2005. Story begins with admissions of ineligible students to medical colleges, then ineligible doctors to hospitals and ends with fatal incidents and public upheavals.
tahreenstance 