Things have gone seriously bad in the healthcare sector in our country
KARACHI: Nine-month-old Nishwa died after she was given an overdose of a medicine at a Karachi hospital. The medicine was to be given through drips but it was given through injection and that too an overdose. The injection was administered by a no-medical staffer of the hospital on the instruction of a physician. The infant was taken to the hospital for treatment of diarrohea where she was treated in a casual manner. The poor child suffered through immeasurable pain due to the incurable brain damage and paralysis caused by the injection. She died on Monday, after battling for life for almost two weeks. The Sindh government has taken some action. Let us see where it leads to. Lately several cases of medical negligence have happened in Karachi. Nishwa died. A young woman suffering from toothache went to a government hospital where she was given an injection; and she died after 15 minutes. A couple says their new-born daughter died due to negligence on the part of doctors at a Karachi hospital in 2016. As a result of the negligence she has become incapable of conceiving. She can never give birth to a child.
Things have gone seriously bad in the healthcare sector in our country. The quality of medical education has considerably gone down. Hospitals are functioning without licence. Medical practice and setting up hospitals have become a business. This nefarious practice ought to be arrested. People are losing faith in our physicians and surgeons because of the increasing cases of medical negligence. This is why those who can afford they go abroad to get medical treatment. It is time the government took actions to stem the rot. Nothing is more precious than human life.
Mahnoor Amjad Munir
Published in The Express Tribune, April 23rd, 2019.
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