Hundreds of expectant mothers breathed a sigh of relief when the administration of one of the primary maternity hospitals of the city, the historic Sobhraj Maternity Hospital, reopened the hospital on Thursday afternoon after keeping it closed for over 36 hours.
The hospital had been closed after a patient’s newborn had died at the hospital and her family members had allegedly beaten up the duty doctors on Wednesday. In protest, the doctors closed the operation theatres (OTs) and out-patient departments (OPDs) as well as stopped treating the expectant mothers screaming with labour pains. The hospital has now been reopened, the OTs and OPDs are functioning again, and all the doctors are on duty and treating the patients, said the hospital’s Medical Superintendent Dr Anwar Ali Khwaja.
“We conducted a meeting with the family members who were involved in manhandling the on-duty doctors. We forgave the family members after they apologised, and now the issue has been resolved,” he added.
Talking to Pakistan Today, he requested the media to cooperate with the hospital administration so that the patients arriving at the hospital from all 18 towns of the city could be provided relief.
He said that due to the hospital’s closure, hundreds of patients had suffered, so his administration decided to resolve the issue at the earliest.
According to sources, however, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), which claims to represent local doctors, decided to politicise the issue and started using it to blackmail the Sindh government to make the Health Commission Bill part of the law, which makes careless doctors more powerful.
“The Sobhraj Maternity Hospital will remain closed in protest against the incident, the doctors will not join their duties, and the hospital’s emergency services and routine activities will not be carried out until the provincial government puts the culprits behind bars,” said PMA-Sindh President Dr Samrina Hashmi.
In a written statement, she said, “We demand that the Health Commission Bill be presented at the earliest to the Sindh Assembly and be made a law.”
She also demanded registering a First Information Report against those involved in manhandling the on-duty doctors.
The provincial government could have the culprits’ names and their computerised national identity cards from the hospital, she added.
Interestingly, the PMA has always claimed to believe that all the information that a patient submits to the hospital is confidential and will not be disclosed to anyone for any purpose, but in this case, the PMA has demanded to make use of confidential information.
“All of this is intolerable,” said Dr Hashmi, adding, “We have never let the OPDs and casualty wards to close. We have always asked the doctors to attend the emergency wards and to not go on strikes.”
However, she also justified the Sobhraj Maternity Hospital doctors’ strike and protest by saying, “The situation is out of control now because all doctors, irrespective of being male or female, are attacked and brutally beaten up.”
Expressing surprise over Dr Hashmi’s statement, Dr Khwaja, who was the victim in the incident, said that the PMA is politicising the issue and his administration and doctors would not take any part in the PMA’s demand to keep the hospital closed.
“We conducted a meeting with the family members, and the PMA office-bearers were also invited as independent judges, but we didn’t know that they were going to use this as a tool of blackmailing. Whatever the PMA says, it does not reflect our policy because we wanted to resolve the issue so that the patients do not suffer anymore, and the issue has been resolved now,” he added.
Dr Hashmi also claimed in her written statement that in the past few months, relatives of the patients have barged into the hospital and vandalised hospital property.
“The young doctors suffered head injuries and fractured arms, but the doctors never closed the hospital,” she claimed.
Despite such incidents, the PMA has never conducted a detailed inquiry into these incidents to ascertain the facts or uncover carelessness of the doctors themselves.