LAHORE, July 13: The seven Mayo Hospital doctors, who were suspended from service following the death of a girl last week, claim that the decision is ‘politically motivated’ as the patient was given ‘proper’ treatment but could not survive.Eighteen-year-old Sadaf, a resident of Shahdara, was brought to the Mayo Hospital on June 19 with stomach complications. She died after a few hours.

One of the suspended doctors told Dawn on Sunday that the decision was ‘unjust’ and demanded that they should be reinstated without delay. Quoting their (suspended doctors) version, he said Sadaf Munir was brought to the emergency on June 19 at 5:03pm. “Her father informed the emergency medical officer that the girl had pain in abdomen and difficulty in breathing. She vomited twice after eating a lot of peaches.

“The EMO referred her to medical unit on second floor where Dr Mamoor (Postgraduate Resident) and Dr Rabia (House Physician) attended the patient. They checked her blood pressure, pulse, temperature and respiration and found everything normal, except blood pressure. But that too was not a serious case. Her chest examination was normal which meant that difficulty in breathing was just a subjective problem due to anxiety.”

He further said: “Abdominal examination was normal except a slight tenderness in upper abdomen which usually occurs in ulcer, increased gastric acid secretion due to anxiety, ingestion of acids or alkalis, or poisoning (especially wheat-pill). When the doctor tried to take the history of these conditions, Mr Munir became aggressive on asking whether Sadaf had taken any poison or not.

“He went to Dr Afshan (PGR) and asked her to examine the patient. She told him that Sadaf was being examined by two doctors and she could not interfere. He misbehaved with her and threatened her with serious consequences in case of any casualty”.

Meanwhile, the patient was treated for gastroenteritis and given anti-ulcers medicines and intravenous fluids (three litres were infused in four hours). Blood samples were sent to laboratory and abdominal ultrasound was advised, but Mr Munir did not allow it, according to the doctor.

He said when the duty of the said doctors finished at 8pm, they handed over the patient to Dr Sadaf and Dr Lubna who re-examined the patient. Meanwhile, the patient complained of palpitation and collapsed as the doctor was taking pulse.

“Dr Mohsin and Dr Rabia (senior registrar), along with two house officers, attempted to resuscitate her but to no avail. Since such sort of sudden deaths in normal-looking young patients occurred in the hospital very often due to cardiac arrhythmias in patients with wheat-pill poisoning, Dr Rabia advised autopsy for determination of cause of death.”

He said the doctors would welcome any technical probe into the matter, but taking action against them without any proper inquiry was unjust. He said the father of the deceased girl had threatened the inquiry team that he would immolate himself if the doctors were not suspended. PMA: The Pakistan Medical Association has urged the government to reinstate the suspended doctors without any delay.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, PMA’s Prof Imtiaz Rasool, Dr Sarwar Chaudhry, Dr Izhar Chaudhry and Dr Haq Nawaz Bharwana said the decision to suspend the doctors was not ‘merit-based’ as some ‘political elements’ had played their role.

They said the inquiry committee, headed by Prof Javed Akram, had not recommended ‘action’ against the doctors. In fact, it had given suggestions for the improvement of working conditions, increasing the number of doctors, making emergency medical officers more effective and doing exhumation autopsy in its report.

They also demanded registration of FIR against the people involved in the torture of senior registrar. They said if the doctors were not reinstated within 72 hours, the doctors of all public hospitals in Lahore would observe strike.