LAHORE   -   Noorul Hassan, 55-year-old obese man, passed away at ICU of Shalamar Hospital on Monday after the hospital staff allegedly left him unattended.

The taxi driver, weighing 330kg, was airlifted on a an army helicopter from Sadiqabad on the directives of Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa. He was in the ICU following successful laparoscopic procedure headed by Dr Maazul Hassan on June28.

As per duty doctors and staff, a woman lost her life at the gynaecology department in the morning. Accusing the doctors of negligence, the deceased relatives staged a violent protest, forcing the on-duty medics to leave the hospital, leaving Noor and other patients unattended for hours.

As normalcy returned after arrival of the police, doctors found Noor and another woman patient dead at the ICU.

Additional medical superintendents (AMS) Dr Rizwan said that the protesters had broken windows, switched ventilators off and attacked the doctors. He said the staff left the ICU following unruly scenes.

Dr Maazul Hassan, who performed laparoscopic surgery, said that Noor died at around 8:15am.

“The surgery was successful. I was not there at the time of the sad incident”, he said, adding, nobody could be directly blamed for the incident. “But staff should have been there to attend the patient who had been kept on elective ventilation due to breathing problems. Noor was left unattended for about an hour due to commotion. On noticing the situation of the patient, the staff tried to resuscitate but failed”, he said, adding, the family was informed about positive progress in the health of Noor last day.

Spokesperson of the hospital said that incident would be probed with the help of CCTV footage.

A spokesperson of Punjab Healthcare Commission has said that a three committee had been formed for probing the incident.

Noor’s nephew said that doctors were not responsible for the death. He said that Noor was to be removed from the ventilator today.

Asma, Noor’s wife, said that doctors had informed the family that he passed away due to cardiac arrest.

Noor-ul-Hassan made headlines when he made an appeal on social media for help. Doctors performed first procedure on June 28 and was shifted to ICU where he breathed his last on Monday.