KARACHI, Jan 2: The City Council, on the last of day of its current session, unanimously adopted a resolution deploring the death of a patient in operation theatre at the Spencer’s Eye Hospital on Dec 20 and calling for a judicial inquiry into the affair.

Members discussed the resolution, presented by Siddique Rathore, and said that the incident was a serious violation of human rights committed by those entrusted with providing health care to people.

Mover of the resolution, told the House that the hospital was an institution of high repute founded by a Parsi philanthropist. He observed that the hospital provided an exceptional service not only to Karachiites but also to the residents a vast area of interior Sindh.

He referred to certain queries emerging out of the press reports, He also mentioned his personal visit to the hospital as well as the Edhi morgue where body of the deceased, Dost Muhammad Shah, had been kept for 10 days before burial.

Mr Rathore said that he had called on the medical superintendent (MS) of the hospital and said that the MS’s claim that the hospital management had tried to locate relatives of the deceased. Mr Rathore said there was no evidence to believe that anybody had visited Mr Shah’s hometown, Tando Mohammad Khan, or any registered mail had been sent to the address marked in the victim’s NIC.

He lamented that the hospital authorities did not even inform the concerned officials of city government and simply sent the body to Edhi Trust with a letter signed by an RMO instead of the MS.

Mr Rathore insisted that it was duty of the hospital authorities to conduct an inquiry into any death occurring after the administering of a local anaesthesia. The report of such an inquiry, he added, had to be made public.

He told the Council members that there was no entry in the computerized record of the hospital about the patient. He alleged that the patient might have been operated upon by the RMO without making an entry in the hospital record for the sake of money.

Expressing his serious concern over such a happening at a public sector hospital, Mr Rathore called for a stern action against the administration of the Spencer’s Eye Hospital so as to set an example.

Similar views were expressed by Jafarul Hasan, Ghulam Abbas Talpur, Shamim Mumtaz Wasi, Abdur Razzaq, Abdul Rahim Gabol and Musfira Jamal who supported the demand for a judicial inquiry.

Jafarul Hasan deplored the state of affairs in public sector hospitals where, he claimed, lack of resources was not the only problem, but the attitude of doctors and other medical staff was more depressing.

Ghulam Abbas Talpur observed that it was the first incident of its kind where an eye patient had lost his life during the process of surgery. He stressed the need for ascertaining the cause of his death. He also demanded suspension of the hospital’s MS.

The Chairman of City Council’s Hospital Committee, Riaz Tabassum, has said that the situation at the Spencer’s Hospital could not be improved even by the Rangers. He alleged that Dr Ayub Memon, the RMO, had been drawing his salary for the five-year period during which he had remained abroad.

The house also approved two more resolutions. One of them was presented by Shamim Mumtaz Wasi. It called for the lifting of ban on recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff for schools and colleges in Karachi.

The other resolution, presented by Abdur Razzaq, deplored the death of a child in Metroville, Site area, by a wagon of D-1 route on Jan 2.