Doctors turn on reporters for pursuing negligence story

Media personnel banned at a hospital after reporters receive information about death of a child due to negligence.

DERA GHAZI KHAN: Doctors banned media personnel from a hospital after reporters received information about the death of a child in a maternity home due to the alleged negligence of a doctor.

Nearly a dozen reporters reached the DG Khan DHQ hospital after receiving word of the death of an infant and former Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) official Dr Jawad Zaka barred reporters from the hospital and threatened them. Several security guards pelted the reporters with stones and cameramen were beaten.

DHQ medical superintendent (MS) Dr Wamiq Ur Rehman has ordered an inquiry into the incident. Rehman told The Express Tribune that strict action would be taken against the lady doctor involved in delivering the newborn if she was found guilty of negligence. “No charges have been proven as yet and we must not jump to conclusions. An investigation is underway,” Rehman said.

According to the family, doctors have confirmed that following complications during the operation the mother of the deceased child, Shamim Ahmed, can no longer conceive. The family said that the child died because the operation was unnecessarily delayed. Abdullah Town resident Iftikhar Ahmed brought his wife Shamim to the Dera DHQ maternity ward on Saturday and asked doctors to take her into delivery as she was in intense pain. The staff told him that her operation would be conducted on Monday and discharged his wife on Saturday.

On Sunday her condition worsened and she was rushed to the hospital but Dr Farzana Bokhari refused to operate on her. Later in the afternoon, when Dr Sajida Mehboob reached the hospital she also refused to operate on the woman claiming that her ‘eyesight was weak’. At night Dr Bokhari was called again but arrived at the hospital three hours late. When she operated on Shamim, the baby had already died and the doctor also said that Shamim would not be able to conceive due to irreparable internal damage. The family started protesting against Dr Bokhari’s negligence and Iftikhar said his first child was killed during an operation in the same hospital two years ago. He disclosed that the DHQ MS brokered peace on behalf of Dr Bokhari two years ago and told him to shift his wife to Dr Bokhari’s private clinic as there were no facilities in the government hospital. Iftikhar has demanded that an inquiry be conducted and strict action should be taken against Dr Bokhari.

Meanwhile, DHQ Dr Zaka refused to conduct a post mortem on the newborn and said that a post mortem could ‘not be conducted on a new born under the law’. The parents of the child kept shifting the body back and forth from the district hospital maternity ward to their home. “We have returned to the hospital three times in the hope that a post mortem will be conducted,” said the child’s mother Shamim, adding that the doctor had not informed her of any complications during her delivery and simply informed her an hour later that the child had died. Iftikhar and Shamim said that several doctors including Dr Jawad, from the DHQ and other officials had threatened them with police action if they continued with protests.

Dr Bokhari told reporters that when she conducted the operation the child had already expired. She said that all negligence allegations were baseless and the matter would be cleared after the official inquiry report came in. “I don’t need to prove anything. I conducted a clean operation and I cannot be blamed if the infant was already dead,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2010.