My first cousin recently died, and as much as it is Allah’s will, its also due to some criminal incompetance or worse from the doctors who treated him. I was wondering if anything can be done about it, aside from writing a beykaar letter to some newspaper.
He was 2 years old and 4 months, and had a hole in his heart, a condition diagnosed when he was less than 10 days old. about two weeks ago he had persistent pneumonia, which made it hard for him to eat. That was all that was wrong with him, not very serious, he had had it for about two weeks and aside from having coughs and stuff, nothing very major. otherwise he was a perfectly happy kid. we took him to a private medical clinic run my national institute of child health (NICH)'s director, and there they gave him a medicine contraindicated in his condition (this is the clinic that has been treating him since he was born) that had the effect of increasing the thickness of his blood, and caused his condition to significantly deteriorate. since the child was in visible pain, and the doctor from NICH was having a happy ramzaan and had taken the day off with his cellphone turned off while instructing his staff not to let patients leave. we forcibly had him discharged from there after 3 hours, and rushed him to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), because by now, the problem was in his heart.
Prior to this I had always thought NICVD to be a very respectable place. Since it was iftaar time, there was nobody to help the child in the emergency ward for an hour. Then, the doctor on call had him admitted. They gave him a painkiller and he went to sleep which then became a coma.
At this point, because his blood had become very thick, his blood oxygen count decreased very rapidly, progressively decreasing before our eyes. My sister, who is a paediatrician, and two other doctors in my family thought that at this point a ventilator was necessary, when his oxygen levels were first around 50, then 40 then 30 percent. The doctors kept telling us that a ventilator is not necessary. Over a period of time over the next two days they kept telling us that, as the lack of oxygen caused brain damage to him, and eventually his death.
As the end came closer, we were told that they actually didnt have a ventilator.
Had they told us before, we would’ve taken him somewhere else. But they treat patients like such garbage, they would rather give easy answers than take on criticism even if it means a life. 15 minutes after the death, my mamu who at that point had no means of transportation, that even though he paid for the room for the day, the room had to be vacated because the specialists were doing their rounds, and didnt wish to see dead children. It was not their problem, where the father is supposed to take his precious child now wrapped in a sheet.
As you can imagine, we are all very angry, and want to do something atleast to make sure that children rushed to the city’s largest dedicated cardio hospital dont suffer this fatal mistreatment. im not a doctor, so I cant do anything about it directly, and understand that its probably very easy to wriggle out for them now, based on whatever little evidence we have. i dont know, i might even be wrong about it.. but i dont think i am. Can anything tangible be done?
