Doctors boycott work over medical superintendent’s arrest

Police arrested Dr Jam Kumbhar in a case relating to death of a sanitary worker

HYDERABAD: Doctors and paramedical staff boycotted on Saturday work at Civil Hospital, Umerkot in reaction to the arrest of medical superintendent Dr Jam Kumbhar in a case of a sanitary worker’s death. A token boycott was also observed at Civil Hospital, Mithi, Tharparkar district.

Kumbhar is among over half-a-dozen persons, including doctors and staff of the Umerkot Municipal Committee, who have been nominated in the FIR of Irfan Maseeh’s death. The sanitary worker was allegedly not given lifesaving medical treatment at Umerkot hospital, where he was taken in an unconscious condition after being pulled out, along with three other sanitary workers, from a manhole.

The doctors allegedly refused to treat him because he was ‘unclean’. Later, an empty oxygen cylinder was provided to resuscitate the comatose patient, according to the family and the workers who took him to the hospital.



“Apparently it seems Maseeh didn't die due to the doctors' reluctance to treat him," the health services director-general (DG), Ikhlaq Ahmed, said on Saturday, while speaking to the local media in Umerkot, basing his statement on the hospital records. "He [Maseeh] was already dead before he reached the hospital," he added.

Ahmed said that a two-member inquiry committee has been constituted and will submit its report in three days. The DG also condoled with the family of Maseeh at their residence.

The Umerkot police registered an FIR under sections 319 and 334 of the Pakistan Penal Code on complaint of Irfan Maseeh's father, Nazeer Ahmed Maseeh. Civil hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Jam Kumbhar, Dr Yousuf Kumbar and Dr Allahdad Ranto, as well as the municipal committee's staff Behari Lal Malhi, Sarwan Malhi and Khalid Khoso, have been nominated in the FIR.