doctors

I chatted with haroon ellahi last night and he told me that a very close friend of his passed away from doctors’ negligence. She was just 17. How tragic and what a loss to the family and friends. The doctors had apparently given her a drug overdose and neglected to check the side effects it would have, and she went into a coma immediately. This reminded me of something my cousin had told me not so long ago, regarding my eldest mamoo who died 4 yrs ago, not due to negligence of doctors but a disease which was slowly eating away at his mind and body. Why this girl’s death reminded of his was because of the way the doctors behaved in his case as well.

My cousin told me that when mamoo was in a hospital in karachi, breathing his last, my eldest khala was with him and she could tell that he was slipping away. There came a point when she knew he was gone and that was the time when the doctors started streaming into the room, screaming for everyone to get out. Everyone knew he was dead but the doctors tried to resuscitate him and rushed him to the ICU. All the relatives rushed along but were told to wait outside. Time passed with no news from inside the closed doors. They waited for hours, asking orderlies and nurses what was going on but received no reply. Finally, after 3 hours, my cousin met a doctor he knew and asked him what was going on inside. The doctor hesitated and then finally replied: "I shouldn’t be telling you this but I will because I know you. He’s been dead for 3 hours but they’ve put him in the ICU because that way they can hand you a hefty bill at the time of discharge. Undar to chai samosay chal rahay hain. Please kuch kehna nahi abhi, mein chala jaoon to bolna," he said, and left. And lo and behold, after a few minutes the attending doctors came out and said that they were sorry, mamoo had passed away and after a few hours, an additional 6, 7 thousand rupees were asked for because of the time spent in the ICU.

How sad it is to see those who are supposed to save lives, treat someone’s death so callously and for such mercenary purposes. And like I said to Haroon too, imagine how the doctors treat those people who are already downtrodden and poor, if this is the treatment they give to those who are supposedly "well off". Imagine what horrendous ordeals poor people have to go through in hospitals, how they have to run around to get doctors to listen to them, attend to them...there’s no accountability for anyone, no accountability for any injustice or malpractice in this country. None whatsoever.