KARACHI, Dec 30: Edhi volunteers on Monday buried the 10 day old body of Dost Muhammad Shah, a patient who died under mysterious circumstances at the Spencer’s Eye Hospital.

A resident of Tando Mohammad Khan, Dost Muhammad Shah, died on Dec 20 while being operated upon for inter-ocular lens.

Since the patient came from upcountry and nobody was accompanying him during the process of the operation, the hospital management bypassed the procedural autopsy that could establish reason for his death. Instead, it sent the body to the Edhi Centre, Sohrab Goth, for burial.

Even, senior officials of the Health Department and city government were not informed of the death on operation table.

Senior eye specialists opined that such an eventuality could happen when the local anaesthesia was administered to a patient to be operated upon without caring for its reaction. They said that it was the consultant’s responsibility to make it sure that the patient was not hyper-sensitive to the drug or did not suffer from any cardiac problem.

Usually xylociane is used at the Spencer’s Hospital and other public sector hospitals as local anaesthesia.

Sources at Spencer’s Hospital claimed that the RMOs, Dr Ayub Memon and Dr Birbal, used to conduct operations without the information or permission from senior consultants and hospital officials.

The sources further stated that Dr Ayub Memon was involved in an inter-ocular lens operation of a patient occupying bed No 50 on Dec 20. However, they added, no such record was available with the hospital management.

Even the statistical department of the hospital does not have any information about Dost Muhammad Shah having been admitted or operated upon.

Nevertheless, the Edhi morgue record clearly shows that the body of Dost Muhammad Shah had come from Spencer’s Eye Hospital.

A request to the Edhi Centre on the hospital’s letterhead, read, “Syed Dost Muhammad s/o Ali Bux of Deh Lakhpat, Tando Muhammad Khan, expired in operation theatre at 9.30am. He was admitted for contract surgery. Keep the body in cold storage for three days.”

The letter was duly signed and stamped by an RMO of the Spencer’s Eye Hospital but without the name of the RMO. A similar letter, dated Dec 21 and duly signed by Dr Muhammad Ayub on a plain paper, was received by the Edhi mortuary requesting the Edhi Centre to keep the body till Dec 26.

Yet another letter, again on the hospital’s letterhead, was sent to the mortuary on Dec 27. Though the letter bore stamp of the RMO, but not his name. The contents were a request for the body’s burial.

According to the volunteers at the mortuary, Dost Muhammad Shah possessed a couple of receipts, one pertaining to the purchase of cloth worth Rs3,300 on Sept 9, 2002 and the other, dated Dec 16, of a dry cleaner shop at Lea Market.

The Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Qazi Wasif, could not be contacted for comments on the issue. He is not attending the office for a couple of days without assigning any reason.

Meanwhile, Dr Humayun, DO Admn-II of the Health Department, City Government, who is also the administrative in-charge of all the city government hospitals previously belonging to the defunct KMC, said that he had received no such report from Spencer’s Eye Hospital.

He, however, admitted that there were some reports of certain doctors at the hospital conducting operations and charging a heavy amount.

Dr Humayun recounted various measures taken by him to monitor the situation. In this regard, he said that he had ordered preparation of daily admissions list. Contrary to his claim, sources at the Spencer’s Eye Hospital appeared unaware of any such list being prepared while certain doctors did operate their patients routinely without maintaining any record.—PPI