Man slapped for ‘calling out slacking technician’

Ali had taken his wife to the Mother and Child Health Centre and was asked to take her blood test samples to the lab.

ISLAMABAD:

A man who went to hand over his wife’s test samples got slapped and yelled at by a lab technician at Pims.

Mansoor Ali, an engineer, claimed lab technician Muhammad Taimoor slapped him and used foul language. Ali had taken his wife to the Mother and Child Health Centre (MCH) on Monday and was asked to take her blood test samples to the lab.

He went to the lab at 11:30pm but found no one there. A security guard nearby told him that during late hours, test samples are dropped off at the Children’s Hospital lab.

He then went to Children’s Hospital, but there he was told to go back and submit the samples to the MCH lab.

“I wasted 45 minutes running around. During this, my [eight months pregnant] wife had to keep standing outside the building,” he said.

When he got back to the MCH, there was still no one there, so he went to the security officer and asked him to help. The security officer made a few calls and told Ali to go back to the MCH lab.

This time he found Taimoor there. When Ali made a remark about his long absence, they began arguing before Taimoor slapped him. Security came quickly to intervene.

“He thought I had lodged a complaint with the hospital administration about his absence from his post. Instead of simply accepting his mistake, he became aggressive, used foul language, and then slapped me,” said Ali.

Taimoor denied slapping Ali. “I was there till 11:30pm and only left to drop test samples at the main lab, which took hardly 10 minutes. He is the one who started misbehaving,” he claimed.

Pims spokesperson Waseem Khawaja was “unaware of the incident as it took place late at night”.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2012.