Daily Times

“With an MBBS degree of five years, one year course on medical ethics for doctors to be taught a sense of humanity, social norms and moral ethics must be scheduled.” An ordinary man with tens of hundreds of people supporting him by raising the same concern on social media, in the wake of a recent demise which was caused by doctors negligence, of Nashwa, an infant of around nine months.

It’s not the first time such negligence and irresponsible behavior of doctors towards patients is being witnessed. Nashwa reportedly suffered brain damage soon after she was given increased amounts of an injection intended for curing her illness than what was required, on 7th of April, 2019.

After suffering the agony of not being able to breath for two weeks, Nashwa took her last breath on Monday 22 April, leaving her parents into a morass of enduring pains and impatience.

First Investigation Report (F.I.R) was lodged by Nashwa’s father on 15 April against the administration of the hospital where she was admitted and got unfortunate severe brain damage.

In the FIR, it is mentioned that the incident occurred due to the excessive amount of injection prescribed for treatment due to the negligence of hospital staff when the baby’s father brought her to hospital for medical treatment on April, 6. The hospital was located in Gulistan-i-Jauhar locality, people witnessed the crumbling sighs of the parents whose baby was snatched off its beautiful life.

There, it was the moment of utmost despair in the periphery of locality, an air of gloom and grief surrounded the site. Nobody had that potential to share parent’s grief on the sudden, uncalled-for demise of their innocent baby. Their impatience grew and grew, and there was agonizing silence prevailing over the parents. Their existence all of a sudden became useless and aimless.

Hardly a day or two passed since this incident, another incident of the same ilk occurred in Bilal Colony in the city’s Korangi locality. According to her parents, a four year old Razia died a quick death due to a ‘misused’ injection. This too is said to be staff’s utter negligence in the matter. They said she was enduring high fever when she was rushed towards the nearby hospital where a doctor named Muhammad Imran said to be involved in the alleged negligence and injected the girl.

In the event, police have taken the doctor into custody and ensure a transparent probe into the incident. Police noted that soon after the girl was treated with an injection, the family of the bereaved claim it has taken the baby’s life, her health gradually worsened and she was in a dying bed. While the body was reportedly shifted to a nearby hospital where the post-mortem was going to be done, the relatives of the deceased took the body back without postmortem being done.

Through this, both cases where irresponsibility and negligence of staff is predominantly found, the devastating condition of hospitals is obviously stark. The hospitals are lacking experienced staff, including doctors and nurses. For the special treatment of patients, another thing apart, registered nurses and qualified doctors are hard to be witnessed in the hospitals.

The health system of Pakistan where bringing improvement in the areas of the health sector has become incumbent given this state of medical negligence has long been undergoing mismanagement and gross misconduct of hospital staff. The present government ought to take responsibility to have a detailed check-on at the management of the hospital and its provision of particular medical treatment.