Widow to receive Rs50m as compensation

The plaintiff won her case after five years and secured an order in her favour from a senior civil judge.

ABBOTABAD:

After a long, drawn out legal battle of over five years, the widow of a deceased lawyer will finally receive damages for the death of her husband who died due to alleged negligence at Abbottabad Ayub Medical Complex (AMC).

A civil court ordered the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health secretary, former AMC chief executive and AMC medical superintendent, along with some other staff members, to pay Rs50 million to the widow.

While sharing the court order with the media on Monday, Advocate Ayub Awan said his client Rizwana Bibi, the widow of Advocate Shakil Jadoon, filed a complaint in the court of a senior civil judge in Abbottabad on July 24, 2009. She accused the AMC staff of negligence which led to the death of her husband.

The plaintiff contended that on June 3, 2009, she took her husband to the emergency department of the AMC. Rizwanza Bibi added the on-duty doctor referred him to the medical ward without a proper check-up.

In the petition, she said her husband was subsequently shifted to the neurological ward where doctors and other staff failed to give him adequate attention. This forced her to shift Jadoon to a private hospital where he breathed his last. The plaintiff accused the AMC’s staff of negligence. She added that had her husband been given due care, he could still be alive.

The plaintiff won her case after five years and secured an order in her favour from senior civil judge, Ali Gohar Khan. The court ordered the K-P secretary health, the then AMC chief executive Naeem Shehzad, medical superintendent Dr Iftikhar and other staff members to pay the damages to the widow.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2015.