Fertility victims too ashamed to go public
ISLAMABAD, July 26: Over 300 childless persons have narrated their woes to the chief commissioner’s office investigating a dubious doctor for robbing them of millions in the name of making them fertile, Dawn has learnt. Interestingly, only 60 of them recorded their statements openly with the office, without any inhibitions.
The rest felt so ashamed of willingly falling for the hocus pocus of the “fertility expert” that they asked their stories be kept secret, according to sources in the office.
Police had raided the fertility clinic on July 20 and arrested the “specialist doctor” and his three alleged accomplices for exploiting childless couples’ desire to have children and ruining their health in the process.
Police said the clinic was run by a fake doctor and his accomplices, who had duped and harmed more than 20 couples by their so-called “synchronised fertility with hormonal balancing” treatment.
First advertised as “American Hospital”, the clinic was later named “Fertility and Men`s Power Hospital”, police said.
“Over 300 complainants, couples and singles, have approached the commissioner office when they learnt through media that the clinic was dubious,” an official of the ICT administration, requesting anonymity, said. “Several were in tears as they recorded statements.”
Almost over 60 of them recorded “open statements” while the rest did not want to disclose their identities, the official said. “We were not expecting that such a large number of people would turn up for recording their statements.
But they have come forward and ready to stand as witness in court,” the official said. After recording statement, Talat Mehmood from Fatehjang told Dawn that he visited the clinic two years. “I was assured that I would become father after the treatment but I didn’t. I had paid Rs150,000 in advance.”
He said he was shattered when he learnt the clinic was dubious.
According to a health official who is assisting the police in the probe, initial laboratory reports of several drugs recommended by the clinic were “injurious to health and banned” in Pakistan.
“A case has been registered against fake clinic managers under the Drug Act. They were using banned drugs,” he maintained.
The ICT administration official said another case would be registered for using and selling banned drugs without getting licence and approval from the local administration’s health department.
Regarding the degree of the doctor running the clinic, he said they had already written to Pakistan Medical and Dental Council for its verification.