KARACHI, Feb 19: While parents and a private hospital appear to have locked horns over the issue of a 15-year old epilepsy patient, Aariz Ali Shaikh, the Sindh health department has decided to conduct an inquiry into the matter.

Aariz, according to his mother, was admitted for a three-day epilepsy-related process about six months back, but has been failing to recover. She attributes the failure to a patient-unfriendly attitude on the part of the Aga Khan University Hospital.

“My son has become a complicated medical case due to the apathy of the doctors, related staffs and administrative hostilities effected by the hospital,” she said and added that the parents and other relatives were neither being allowed to meet the patient nor they were being kept formally update on the condition of Aariz.

A source in the health department said that the AKUH authorities had now approached the department to hold a medical board enabling the shifting of the patient, who is already on ventilator in the ICU, to some government hospital. It informed the health secretary in a letter that Aariz had been left unattended by his parents, added the source.

In view of a prolonged allegation and counter-allegation exercises undertaken by the parents and hospitals, now the health secretary had decided to hold a broad- based inquiry to reach the bottom of the problem.

While the patient is likely to be kept at AKUH in the given situation, the inquiry committee comprising professionals and specialists from the Dow University of Health Sciences and other departments will start work in a day or two, confirmed Dr Noshad A. Sheikh.

In the meantime, the AKUH once again denied the allegations made by the parents and said that the patient continued to be provided compassionate and safe care for the last 156 days of hospitalisation in spite of the abusive and aggressive behaviour of the family.