PESHAWAR, June 13: A senior doctor has been lying unconscious in a hospital here for more than two months due to what his family believes was negligence during a cataract operation.

The doctor is Dr Abdul Hamid Afridi who retired as associate professor of pharmacology at the Khyber Medical College (KMC), Peshawar, and at the time of his operation was working at the Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi.

It is alleged that he was wrongly administered anaesthesia at the operation theatre of the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) on April 11.

His wife, Tasneem Hamid Afridi, an assistant professor at the College of Home Economics at the University of Peshawar, believes her husband was given a local anaesthesia which created a reaction. Dr Afridi went into respiratory as well as cardiac arrest. His daughter, Dr Madiha Afridi, alleges that doctors at the operation theatre did not observe the protocol required for local anaesthesia.

Mrs Hamid Afridi says the family was kept in the dark about Dr Afridi’s condition and was initially told that he had been shifted to the ICU and would soon recover.

Dr Afridi has been on a ventilator since then. The family believes negligence led to this medical crisis confronting Dr Afridi.