EARLIER this year, my elder brother passed away after suffering from abdominal pain and nausea. He was taken to Ayub Teaching Hospital where he was admitted to medical ward. The patient remained there for four days. He was never free of pain, but the doctor, instead of sending him to surgery ward, declared the patient stable and discharged him without diagnosis. The patient suffered severe pain at home and had to be rushed to the hospital the very next day. This was a blatant case of medical negligence.

It took the doctors another 10 days to advise a CT scan on the basis of which he was advised to undergo surgery. Even then, the patient was not taken for surgery for the next three days during which the doctors advised us to shift the patient to another doctor’s private hospital for urgent surgery.

When he was finally shifted to the surgery ward, he remained at the mercy of junior doctors. A trainee surgeon operated upon the patient without any senior surgeon supervising the procedure.

There was heavy bleeding during surgery, but blood grouping had not been done, and blood had not been arranged prior to the surgery. The trainee surgeon failed to control the bleeding, and nobody monitored the vital signs during the procedure. The patient suffered from shortness of breath after the surgery, but he was not shifted to the intensive care unit despite our requests.

After two further days of pain, agony and misery, the patient eventually passed away. If this is not medical negligence, what is?

I lodged a complaint with the Citizen’s Portal. The inquiry committee was constituted on June 3, which was directed to submit its report along with recommen-dations within seven working days, but it concluded after two months. Ironically, all members of inquiry committee were the doctors against whom the complaint had been filed. How can an accused be an impartial judge? It was like asking a wolf to guard sheep.

The family has not been provided the inquiry report despite several written requests. There is no accountability of senior doctors, it seems. Unfortunately, the writ of the government seems missing. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister has been approached more than once, but there has been no response.

Is there anyone in the country who has the time to listen to the grievances of the aggrieved, and to stop this murder that is going on in the name of ‘healthcare’ and ‘medical treatment’ in the country?

Ali Khan
Mansehra

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2025