Rawalpindi - Angry relatives of a 55-year-old man, who allegedly died due to medical negligence of doctors at Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), demonstrated and tortured two senior doctors severely, reliable sources revealed to The Nation on Sunday.
The charged relatives and family members of the patient also chanted slogans against Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif, Rawalpindi Medical College Principal and Allied Hospital Chief Executive Prof Dr Muhammad Umar and Medical Superintendent BBH Dr Asif Qadir Mir, sources added.
According to sources, a patient namely Abdul Majeed son of Wadi Hussain was brought in emergency department of BBH from Saee Singhori, a suburb of Mandra, on January 28 with complaints of diabetic, hepatitis C and a wound on a leg. The doctors kept the patient under treatment till February 4 and later shifted him to Ward 9 (HDW-SU 1) on Saturday where he died at 8:30pm owing to alleged negligence of doctors.
The death of patient sparked unrest among the attendants, numbering in 10, who started beating Senior Registrar Dr Haider and Postgraduate Trainee (PGT) Dr Aftab, besides staging protest demonstration against the government and the hospital administration.
An eyewitness told this scribe that one of the attendants picked up oxygen cylinder and threw it towards Dr Haider injuring him critically.
Soon after the incident, a DMS and other doctors along with police reached the ward and shifted the injured doctors to hostel. However, the attendants and relatives of patient managed to escape from hospital by putting the dead body in an ambulance.
Sources said that all the doctors working in the ward left seeing the protest and went to the hostel, leaving more than 25 patients in pain, five of them were very critical. Only one staff nurse and two students cured the patients by getting medical advice from senior doctors on phone.
Tahir Mehmood, the son-in-law of the deceased, while talking to this scribe leashed out at doctors saying his father-in-law died because of negligence of doctors. He said that his father-in-law remained in hospitals for 11 days but was not provided proper medical treatment. “I and my relatives paid several visits to doctors requesting them to come and see our patient as he is in critical condition but all the times doctors refused to come,” he said, adding that the doctors only came at last stage. “The patient died during the process and we protested and tortured doctors,” he said. A doctor seeking anonymity said that the incidents of beating doctors were on rise while no security was being provided to the paramedics. He said that only one ward boy performed duty in seven wards during night which was insufficient to cater the need of doctors and patients.
RMC Principal and AHs CE Prof Dr Muhammad Umar and MS BBH Dr Asif Qadir Mir were not available for their comments on the issue.
–Israr Ahmed