SAHIWAL: After the death of another child at the District Headquarters teaching hospital here on Thursday, the parents and relatives of the deceased blocked Sahiwal-Noor Shah road, accusing doctors of paediatric ward, of administering a wrong injection to the minor boy.

According to hospital record, eight-year-old Tahir was brought to the emergency ward of the DHQ hospital with high-grade fever three days back from Kot Allah Din. Later the child was referred to the paediatric ward of the hospital.

The parents alleged during treatment in the ward, the doctors administered a wrong injection resulting in their son’s death.

Later the child’s parents and relatives brought his dead body outside the hospital and blocked Noor Shah-Sahiwal Road for traffic in protest against what they called doctors negligence. They chanted slogans against the doctors, demanding registration of FIR against them.

Paedriatic ward doctors accused of negligence

Farid Town Station House Officer Abid Bhuula negotiated with the protesters for ending the protest but they refused to budge.

Later, Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Zaman Watto arrived at the spot and after negotiating with them convinced them to handover the child’s body to the administration for an autopsy so that the actual cause of his death could be ascertained.

The DC quoting the parents said the child was administered an injection on Wednesday following which red spots appeared on his body and he died on Thursday.

He said the matter would be probed into and action would be taken if any negligence was found on part of the doctors.

The DC appointed Dr Sajid Mustafa, of the Sahiwal Medical College to examine the child’s postmortem examination report and determine cause of his death. This is yet another incident at the DHQ hospital during the last 10 days in which families blamed paedriatric ward doctors for death of their children.

Earlier, during the Eid holidays parents blamed doctors for death of three infants.

Though later official inquiries absolved the doctors of negligence charges, health minister Dr Yasmin Rashid, during a surprise visit of the teaching hospital on June 10, ordered transfer of Medical Superintendent Dr Shahid Nazir.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2019