November 18, 2006	Saturday	Shawwal 25, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Administration of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) has suspended a doctor on the charges of negligence and ordered an inquiry into the death of journalist Mohammad Miskeen.

According to a statement issued here on Friday, Pims Executive Director Dr Fazle Hadi said that the accused doctor at the Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) has been suspended for a detailed inquiry, the result of which would be made public within a week.

Dr Hadi said that preliminary inquiry into the tragic death of Mr Miskeen, a sub-editor of Urdu daily Ausaf, had revealed that the patient, accompanied by a colleague, reported to the emergency department complaining of chest pain.

He said an urgent ECG was done there and a call was sent to the cardiologist on duty. However, the patient did not stay in bed and walked to the office of the assistant director (AD) on duty.

The AD was arranging a wheelchair for the patient to send him to the CCU for further checkup, the Pims chief claimed, but the patient and his colleague did not wait and “without the knowledge of the AD, walked up a flight of stairs to the CCU ward even though the lifts were also available”.

When the patient with his colleague arrived at the CCU, the doctor on duty was attending to a cardiac arrest case, however, he saw the ECG report and told the patient to stay in the emergency ward as there was no bed available, he said.

Dr Hadi added that the patient then went to the emergency ward and collapsed there. Cardiac arrest procedure was carried out for half-an-hour but he could not survive.

It may be mentioned here that Mr Miskeen was brought to Pims with complaint of cardiac arrest by a colleague on November 15. First he was checked in the emergency ward, however, on his continuous complaint he was referred to the CCU. The doctors at the emergency ward and CCU reportedly failed to diagnose and pronounced his condition stable.

Returning from the CCU, where the doctor had advised him to take some medicine saying that nothing was serious, Mr Miskeen collapsed once he reached the emergency ward and died.