May 30, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 13, 1428

NAUSHAHRO FEROZE, May 29: Either out of greed or sheer incompetence or both, a doctor at a taluka hospital stretched to three months treatment period of a 14-month-old slightly ill baby girl and caused serious harm to her brain in the process, complained the girl’s father on Tuesday.

Mangial Sehto, father of baby girl Amber, who led a protest demonstration against the doctor of taluka hospital Kandiaro, told journalists that the child specialist Younis Channar diagnosed her daughter with tuberculosis when he brought her from Dhoda village to taluka hospital about three months ago.

He said that the doctor treated her at taluka hospital for 25 days and charged as fee Rs100 per day. Afterwards he advised them to bring her to his private clinic, where he charged them Rs1,000 to Rs1,500 per trip for two months, he added.

He claimed that the doctor did not advise any tests or X-rays in the course of her treatment and forced them buy all the medicines and injections from his private medical store. After about two months the doctor made a revelation that the girl had hepatitis instead of TB as he had earlier diagnosed and treated.

He then started treatment for hepatitis and after sometime again disclosed she had some other disease.

This roused their suspicions and they wasted no time in moving the baby to Nawabshah where Dr Ghulam Nabi Depar confirmed after carrying out blood tests and X-rays said that the patient was neither suffering from TB nor hepatitis but her brain had been affected due to heavy and continuous use of antibiotics, said Imdad Sehto, a relative.

He said that after learning that the doctor at taluka hospital had maliciously kept them in dark to keep wringing money out of them they sent applications against him to the secretary, minister of health, director general of health, EDO of health and district nazim appealing them to conduct an inquiry against him but nobody responded to their pleas even after a lapse of 15 days.

Mangial Sehto and Imdad Sehto appealed to higher authorities to take serious notice of the irresponsible doctor.

More than 200 people belonging to Sehto community and members of general public took part in the rally, which started from New Bakhri Chowk Mohalla and reached Star Chowk where the protesters staged demonstrations and blocked the road for half an hour. Later, they reached the local press club and observed a token hunger strike.