‘Why can’t I see?’

Ashmal Khan lost vision in one eye while the other eye is also failing, allegedly after being an injection of Amoxil.

ISLAMABAD: “Is it true that I cannot go to school because I cannot see properly mama?” Ashmal Khan asks his mother every morning as he watches other children going to school. Ashmal Khan, five, lost vision in one eye in May 2008 while the other eye is also failing, allegedly after being given an injection of Amoxil at the emergency ward of the Polyclinic Hospital. He was diagnosed with an eye ailment caused by wrong medication.

Executive Director of the Polyclinic Hospital Dr Shaukat Kiani has constituted a committee of three doctors – Dr Ahsanul Haq, a senior physician, Dr Amanullah, Assistant Executive Director, and Amna Bibi, from the Pharmacy Department – to investigate into the matter, sources at the hospital told The Express Tribune.

The committee has so far been unable to find any records of the families visit to the hospital or the name of the injection that was given to him. Due to this the investigation has been stopped for the time being.

“The matter has now been taken up by the ministry of Health and soon a senior official will be assigned to probe further into the matter,” said the official sources.

Dr Sharif Astori, spokesperson of Polyclinic Hospital, said that the hospital does not have any record of the medicines administered to the patients who visit the emergency ward. “We register the names of the patients but not the type of medication prescribed or administered to them by the doctor in the emergency ward as it is time consuming,” Astori said. He held the view that a reaction to Amoxil could not result in the loss of eyesight.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Riffat Rana, an eye specialist, said that Steven Johnson is a common eye disease in Pakistan among children and is caused due to the reaction of an antibiotic. “It is important to test how patients react to Amoxil otherwise it can cause a severe reaction which leads to blindness among children,” she added.

She said that treatment for this disease is easily available in Pakistan and in a majority of cases children get their eye sight back. Nazia Khan, the mother of the child, said that she had been trying to get her son treated for the last two years but no one was willing to help or guide her.

Ashmal has undergone two operations on his eye ad his parents have spent 0.4 million on different treatments.

“To bear the expenses of this treatment we sold our taxi, home, my gold jewelry and took loans from our relatives and friends,” Nazia Khan said. The family does not want money but want the hospital to treat their son’s eye.

Nazia Khan said, “All the doctors did was told me to put drops in his eye but nothing has worked.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2010.