May 24, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 07, 1428

LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), May 23: Doctors at the Agency Headquarters hospital in Landi Kotal stopped performing surgeries on ailing patients on Wednesday after a row between a surgeon and an anaesthetist posted in the operation theatre.

At least a dozen patients were made to leave the hospital after surgeon Dr. Tauseef refused to operate them.

Sources in the hospital said that Dr. Tauseef was conducting a private operation on a patient who was allegedly infected with Hepatitis. Dr. Tauseef was accused of accepting extra money from the patient, Awal Khan, for an out of turn private operation.

Dr. Tauseef insisted that he had conducted all necessary medical tests on Awal Khan before surgery. However, Awal Khan himself confirmed before local journalists that he was a Hepatitis patient.

Sources said that the anaesthetist, Dr. Azam, refused to apply anaesthesia to the infected patient on the plea that the disease could also be contracted by other patients to be operated later on. This resulted in a heated argument between Dr. Tauseef and Dr. Azam.

While the patients and their attendants demanded that their surgeries be carried out, Dr. Tauseef not only left the operation theatre but also locked it after forcibly removing patients from there.

The patients and their attendants lodged a complaint with the medical superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Zar Alam. However, he expressed his inability to resolve the matter.

Talking to Dawn, Dr. Zar Alam accused Dr. Azam of creating undue problems for him in the hospital.

He was however at a loss to defend Dr. Tauseef for accepting money from patients for conducting private operations at the hospital.

He said that he had already lodged a written complaint about the conduct of the two doctors to the director, Health, Fata, and demanded their replacement, and added that he was waiting for a reply from him.

Interestingly at the time of the patients’ protest the deputy director, Health, Fata, Dr. Alamgir was also present in the hospital. Some patients brought the matter to his notice but he too expressed his inability to persuade "angry" doctors to conduct surgeries.

It is worth mentioning that the Fata Health Directorate has failed to take any action against the storekeeper of the Agency Headquarters hospital for his alleged involvement in the theft of medicines worth almost Rs 3 million and for physically assaulting Dr. Zar Alam, the medical superintendent of the hospital. The storekeeper is still managing the affairs of the hospital’s medicine store.