A 17-year-old patient, Nisar Ali pronounced death, due to an ostensible medical laxity at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) in Karachi, provoking a serious backlash and protest from his family members.
According to the lamenting family, Nisar was facing a respiratory condition and was not equipped with proper medical care. The situation exacerbated when the doctors recommended the patient to be shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), on emergency, but the patient was purportedly, denied his prerogative, regardless of the fact that two ICU beds were unoccupied, causing loggerheads between the family members and hospital staff.
The situation escalated further with the patient’s attendants reportedly attacking the doctors in the ICU, the video of which has been widely circulating on social media.
The bereaved family also went to record on their protest against the hospital authorities, as they placed the dead body outside the Saddar Police Station, asking for transparency and thorough probing of the case to prevail justice.
However, hospital officials are adamant to their claim and repudiated the allegations. In their response, the administration asserted that the patient was suffering from a grave infection and was critical, when arrived, but the staff made sure to provide all the necessary medical facilities in a professional manner.
The event sparks the ongoing anxieties over the situation of emergency healthcare facilities, specifically in public hospitals, where overcrowding and insufficient resources are not a new talk in the town