Nashwa case: DUSH owners flee after court rejects bail

Two other accused in the case had also fled after their bail pleas were rejected in the last hearing

KARACHI: The owners of Darul Sehat Hospital (DUSH) - Amir Chishti and Ali Farhan - escaped from court premises on Tuesday after their bail pleas were rejected by the judicial magistrate hearing the case of Nashwa's death.

"It was the responsibility of the investigation officer to probe the matter properly," said the lawyer of the accused. "In the interim bail, Section-119 has been added and then Section-322 was imposed. A case of unintentional murder could have been made but the investigation officer also added Section-302," he added, asking the judge to extend the bail.

Nashwa's father, Qaiser Ali, had registered an FIR against the hospital administration for negligence, but had later sought inclusion of Section 302 (murder charges) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), against the accused. The court had ordered the inclusion of Section 322 of the PPC, murder due to negligence and carelessness, in the case, but on May 2, the investigation officer had included Section 302 in the interim challan that was submitted to the court.

Police have nominated more than 20 people as accused in the case. Five accused, Nursing In-charge Atif Javed, Admin Officer Ahmed Shehzad, Waleedur Rehman, Nursing Assistant Moiz and Midwife Sobia, are in jail on judicial remand.

The DUSH owners had initially managed to secure bail from the trial court against a surety of Rs300,000 each. Their bail was extended once in the last hearing, but on Tuesday, the court rejected their plea to extend the bail.

As soon as the court announced its verdict, both the accused fled from the court premises.

Second time



Speaking to the media after the hearing, Qaiser Ali said, "In a previous hearing, some accused had fled and now two more accused easily slipped away from court." The two doctors, Dr Attiya and Dr Sharjeel, who are the prime suspects in this case escaped from the court premises after their bail was rejected by the East district and sessions judge on Friday.

Seal the hospital

Announcing that he would now approach the Supreme Court against the Sindh High Court's order to de-seal the Darul Sehat Hospital, Qaiser said, "We will tell the apex court that till the day it starts employing a skilled workforce and quality equipment, the hospital should not be de-sealed."

On Friday, the SHC had suspended the order of the Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) to seal the DUSH and summoned a response from the commission's board, chief secretary, health secretary and the Advocate-General on the hospital administration's plea against "extreme action without notice".

The plaintiff's counsel had maintained that the hospital had complied with all of SHCC's recommendations immediately. Nevertheless, the SHCC had then ordered to seal the facility. In fact, the counsel pointed out, there was no proper order on record but simply a hand-written note on the Memorandum of Sealing which stated that the action had been taken in compliance of the order from the health minister.

The counsel argued that there was no provision for a minister to exercise such powers and even the commission itself did not have the authority to undertake such an action, except under Section 18, which wasn't applicable in this case.

The incident



Nashwa Ali was brought to DUSH on April 6, along with her twin sister, Amisha Ali, for treatment of diarrhoea. The girls' condition improved a day after treatment.

However, before discharging the infant patients, the staff administered an injection to Nashwa after which her heartbeat abnormally increased. The infant was shifted to the hospital's ICU where she was placed on a ventilator.

The victim's father, Qaiser Ali, had claimed that the incident occurred due to wrong administration of potassium chloride (KCL) injection by untrained hospital staff. The DUSH management had admitted to the mistake on their part and offered to cover the expenditure incurred on the child's treatment.

Seeing no recovery in the child's condition for a week, she was shifted to an ICU at Liaquat National Hospital on April 15, where she died a week later.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2019.