Medical negligence

Yet another case of alleged negligence by hospital staff has surfaced in Karachi. A 25-year-old woman died at a government hospital in Korangi last week and the death is being blamed on staff at the hospital. The woman, Ismat, was suffering from toothache when taken to the hospital. She was treated with an injection which, according to her parents, sent her into eternal slumber within just 15 minutes. While Ismat has been laid to rest, her parents are left to wander in search of justice, just like the parents of eight-month-old Nishwa who is left paralysed, very recently, allegedly due to a wrong dose administered by an attendant at a private hospital in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar neighbourhood.

Deaths by medication errors and staff negligence are nothing new in our country. Such cases keep happening from time to time, but with little remedy, especially if the grieving families don’t have influential connections or the finances to afford legal action. The two cases in question, particularly, bring to the fore the lack of trained paramedical staff in the country. Save for a few big ones, hospitals in our country terribly lack adequately-trained paramedics so much so that this job is considered simple enough to be taken up by anybody and everybody. A case in point is one of the two cases mentioned herein. The paramedic who attended the infant, Nishwa, is said to have been appointed primarily for changing beddings in hospital rooms.

Ours is a system that only functions in a reactionary manner even where precious human lives are at stake. It’s about time to put in a place a proper system to deal with cases of medical negligence. It is suggested that the regulations laid out by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council for medical negligence in their Procedure for Complaints Against Medical and Dental Practitioner be implemented.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 22^nd, 2019.

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