Loss of two precious lives

I was dragging myself with a very heavy heart. I knew her for more than five years and now she was in the ICU of Agha Khan University Hospital struggling for her life. When I reached there, the news I feared was waiting for me. Doctors had confirmed her brain death and friends told me that she was even bleeding from her eyes. I did not have the courage to stay there, so I came back after some time. The same night at her funeral, we were not even allowed to shoulder the coffin as her body was tightly sealed and kept on a truck.

Dr. Yusra Afaq, a charming lady, a brilliant student and a nice friend parted from us on the 20th of November 2005. The cause of her death was presumably “Viral Hemorrhagic Fever,” a deadly disease, which she probably contracted while working as a house officer at Civil Hospital Karachi in the ENT department. She was only 25 years of age and had just married about three months back. Her death was shocking for all of the people who knew her. The house officers were furious at the attitude of the hospital authorities, who said that they were not “officially” informed about such an incident. They immediately went on a strike, which continued for almost a week and ended, when the health secretary ensured that all necessary measures would be taken to improve the environment of CHK and an infectious disease unit and isolation ward would be established at CHK.

This was not the first incident and about two months back another doctor Dr. Zia Siddiqui, a senior Post graduate trainee at Neurosurgery had died of the same cause. The authorities said that this was a normal phenomenon that these cases do occur in the months of October to December, but irony of fate was that nobody on the frontlines was notified to take the precautions. Had they been notified, it is possible that loss of such precious lives could have been prevented.

At this time, CHK remains the breeding home of cats, dogs, rats and all the other pests which one can imagine. It can become an epicenter of any outbreak in the city and remains a threat to the environment of the localities and to all who work there. The conditions remain the same and the patients continue to arrive with bleeding from different orifices of their bodies. Perhaps the authorities are waiting for some more deaths to take some necessary action.