A petitioner from Kasur has stated that his wife was operated on at the hospital by a person who was not a doctor. He has sued two doctors for Rs237,000, for botching the surgery and cited both the mental anguish he suffered, as well as the financial strain involved. The chief executive of the hospital, one of the doctors who has been sued, has denied the charges and stated that two fully qualified surgeons had treated the patient. The findings in the case will be closely watched by many concerned over the state of health care offered in our public sector facilities. If the charges of the surgery being carried out by someone not qualified to do so, turn out to be accurate, we gain a shocking insight into the level of professionalism in the health sector — although, of course, it cannot yet be said whose account is correct. Doctors everywhere complain of patients taking up cudgels each time things go wrong, as is sometimes inevitable in medicine.
But the fact is also that instances of negligence in our hospitals have been growing. Mercifully, in this case, no life was lost. Others dependent on public sector care, or indeed even those who can afford expensive private facilities, have not been quite so fortunate. The courts taking up cases of medical negligence is a good omen. Perhaps it can play some part in offering justice to wronged people, and encouraging doctors to exercise greater care and display more conscience when treating the people who turn to them in search of relief.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 5th, 2011.
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