SHEIKHUPURA, June 3: A number of people, a majority of them children, have lost their lives after complaints of gastroenteritis during the last one month.

The Human Rights Forum at an emergent meeting here on Saturday took strong exception to the DHQ hospital doctors and paramedical staffers’ failure to provided proper and timely treatment to the patients, which resulted in many deaths.

It urged the health department authorities to take stock of the negligence of the doctors and paramedical staffers.

Advocate Chaudhry Ameer Afzal, the HRF chairman, said over 50 gastroenteritis patients were being admitted to the DHQ hospital daily and 17 people had died in May alone.

The hospital treated more than 2,200 patients last year and there were very few deaths, he said, but this year the ratio was alarming.

He said he visited the offices of doctors many times and found them absent. The administration told him that the doctors were busy treating patients at their private clinics.