Infant burnt to death during phototherapy

E-Paper | April 29, 2026

SHEIKHUPURA: A two-day-old infant died on Tuesday at a children’s hospital due to the alleged negligence of a doctor and paramedical staff.

Reports said wife of Imtiaz, a resident of Sultanpura, gave birth to a baby girl. The paramedical staff on the advice of the doctor put the baby in phototherapy machine for the improvement of her condition. But the doctor and paramedical staff forgot to bring the infant out of the machine. Owing to excessive heat, the baby sustained critical burns and died in the machine.

Later, the family placed the body on Sargodha Road in front of the hospital, protested against negligence of the hospital staff and demanded action.

District Coordination Officer Ali Jaan Khan has ordered an inquiry into the incident.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2014

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W.Shaikh

Aug 13, 2014 06:53am

My condolence and prayers for the family. It is sad and tragic that our hospitals and doctors lack sense of responsibility and standard operating procedures are not well defined. An independent inquiry should be conducted and any one found negligent should be given exemplary punishment.

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roger_davis

Aug 13, 2014 08:02am

This seriously calls for capital punishment if this case is proven against the doctor and the medical staff. A poor innocent little girl lost her life because of this. May allah have mercy.

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Dr Aziz

Aug 13, 2014 08:06am

Sad to hear this news.. The condition of hospitals in Pakistan should be raised. Burns due to photo therapy is very rare and noticed due to failure to replace UV filters. Issue should be investigated professionally.

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omer khan shaheen

Aug 13, 2014 08:55am

Life in jail is the key! and in parallel we must ensure controls of health sector.

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Farid

Aug 13, 2014 11:14am

The doctor was probably counting his money.

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Haider Rehman

Aug 13, 2014 11:28am

So sad that this noble profession has been turned into an ugly money-leeching mess. My condolences for the family. I hope this matter would be looked into and the criminal negligence would not be neglected.

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Dr. Sadaf

Aug 13, 2014 02:39pm

Lack of Accountability leads to these issues. There is one other very important point which we are all missing not only in this case but in other departments also and that is Brain drain, people who know their job and have the ability to control situations opt to leave the country and sadly nobody is bothered because it suits those moving in the corridors of power for the last many decades.

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Iqbalrangoonwala

Aug 13, 2014 03:16pm

Put the dr and staff in machine and forget it

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Danish Khan

Aug 13, 2014 03:38pm

Responsible doctors, nurses , other supervisory staff along with Owner of hospitals must be put to trial and sentenced punishment on such a negligence. This has become a habit through out the medical centers in our country. Hope Concerned authorities will take serious actions over it.

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haris

Aug 13, 2014 05:19pm

The staff should be held accountable and punished. Uff Allah! how could anyone be so careless?

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Iqbal

Aug 13, 2014 06:27pm

It appears that staff was not properly trained to handle the machine or was not aware of the Do's and Dont's of usage. In any case responsibility lies squarely with staff.

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Masoud

Aug 13, 2014 08:11pm

Poor girl of 2 days manslaughter. Pinpoint the person for this criminal negligence & punish him. The parent should be compensated by the hospital authority. If this had happened anywhere in the west a serious action would have been taken with suitable compensation to the grieving parent

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Pragmatist

Aug 13, 2014 08:18pm

Negligence by the medical staff is nothing new. However, the situation has worsened in Pakistan due to poor education and training of doctors and medical staff. The medical schools have proliferated to crank out quacks with paper degrees. The quality is not there. On top of it, inept candidates are the ones that find jobs to work for the government. The bright students migrate out of the country and for economic gains.

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Aziz Alam

Aug 13, 2014 09:18pm

Accountability is the only solution to these kind of issues. We need to make sure that individuals do not get away without paying price for their actions.Reward and Punishment will make people work harder and carefully.

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s tanvir

Aug 14, 2014 08:51am

this was an incident of negligence -- this can happen any where but the basic thing is to be seen is how the administration handles this. there should be affair enquiry and if the hospital staff is found then there should be an exemplary punishment so that it would not happen again.

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Aslam Khan

Aug 14, 2014 10:07am

What compensation will the family get? What will happen to the doctor?

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