ISLAMABAD: Doctors at Pims on Friday removed a pair of scissors from the belly of a patient, where it was left during a caesarean delivery conducted at a private hospital last year.

Asad Mehmood, the husband of 35-year-old Irum Naz, told Dawn that they had a boy on Nov 29 last year.

“We had five other children via normal deliveries and the youngest was born via a C-section. My wife should have started recovering after delivery but her condition worsened,” he said.

“She used to complain of pain in her belly. I was thinking it was due to the C-section, since it was the first in our family. I started taking her to various doctors but they could not tell what was wrong with her. She was completely bedridden by then,” he said.

Mr Mehmood said the doctors at Pims admitted his wife for three days and after conducting tests, they found that a pair of scissors had been left in her belly during the operation.

On Friday, Ms Naz was operated on for five hours in order to remove the scissors.

“They have moved her to the surgical ward and though she seemed weak, she is going to be alright,” Mr Mehmood said.

Asked if he will take any action against the private hospital, Mr Mehmood said he works as an electrician and is not in a position to take action against the hospital or the doctors who did the first operation.

Talking to Dawn, Pims Media Coordinator Dr Waseem Khawaja said surgical tools are left in the body due to negligence by doctors or technicians.

Such cases of surgical tools being left in patients surface from time to time but doctors are seldom held to account due to the weak implementation of the laws.

In 2015, a patient was operated upon to remove a towel which had been left during an earlier operation in Talagang.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2018