Court issues notices on plea for action against doctor, cancer hospital MD

The additional sessions judge of District East, Karachi, issued notices to a surgeon and the managing director of a cancer hospital, and the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Sindh Healthcare Commission on Saturday regarding the demise of a patient due to alleged carelessness at the hospital.

A businessman of Karachi, Zeeshan Hussain Agahi, submitted an appeal before the session court against an order of the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC) after the death of his brother Muhammad Irfan at the cancer hospital.

In its order, the SHCC had declared the attitude of the surgeon and staff of the hospital careless leading to the death of the patient and imposed a fine of Rs250,000 on the surgeon on May 23, 2023 for his carelessness under Section 28(1) the Sindh Healthcare Commission Act 2013.

The SHCC in the same decision declared the doctor responsible for causing a delay in timely identification of a known complication of the procedure and managing the patient accordingly, which ultimately led to sepsis and multi-organ failure.

In the same order, the commission had directed the hospital to develop a multi-disciplinary team for the management of cancer surgery cases, submit a surgical audit report of morbidity and mortality records of the last one or two years of all surgeons working at the hospital, implement patient care services according to laid down standards by the SHCC, prepare the facility for the SHCC audit and regular licence, and develop standard operating procedure (SOPs) with its dissemination to relevant stakeholders for clinical documentation, effective communication and counselling.

Dissatisfied with the order of the Sindh Healthcare Commission, Zeeshan Hussain Aghai, brother of the deceased, lodged an appeal with the sessions court, East, and the appeal was later transferred to the additional sessions Court-9, East. He asked the court to set aside of the order of the commission on the ground and cancel the licence of the doctor and impose a fine of Rs200 million to be given to the family of the deceased.

As per the pliant of the complaint, Zeeshan, the Sindh Healthcare Commission, the doctor and the staff of the cancer hospital failed to provide appropriate treatment to his brother Irfan Hussain, who was suffering from gastrointestinal stromal tumor, which resulted in various postoperative complications leading to his demise.

Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the order passed by the chief executive officer of the Sindh Healthcare Commission in a complaint, Zeeshan was of the view that his brother was admitted to the cancer hospital with a history of abdominal pain, his first surgery was done on October 31, 2022, and the surgeon with the help of his staff took the patient to the operation theater without any examination and lab tests and without following the procedure of operation and surgery, and despite the serious condition of the patient, the doctor did another operation. The patient’s family and appellant Zeeshan consulted an experienced doctor at another hospital and showed him the case papers of the patient, where improper treatment was suspected. When these concerns were conveyed to the cancer hospital doctor, he misbehaved with relatives of the patient and continued his procedure.

Applicant Zeeshan in his appeal was of the view that the staff of the cancer hospital did not work as a team and though there was a different doctor for every disease and every work, the surgeon did all the work by himself and did not call any doctor.