SHC suspends health care commission’s order to seal Darul Sehat

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday suspended the order of the Sindh Health Care Commission (SHCC) with regard to the sealing of Darul Sehat Hospital. The high court, however, directed the hospital to comply with the recommendations of the commission.

The interim order came on a lawsuit filed by Darul Shifa against the sealing of its hospital Darul Sehat situated in the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area, following the tragic death of minor baby Nashwa due to alleged negligence of the hospital staff. After conducting an inquiry into Nashwa’s death, the SHCC issued an order on April 24 to seal the hospital and also initiated proceedings for violating the recommendations of the SHCC issued to the hospital on April 23.

The plaintiff’s counsel, Salahuddin Ahmed, submitted that two minor sibling girls Nashwa and Umasha were brought to the hospital with complaints of vomiting, loose motion and symptoms of dehydration. He said that Umasha was discharged after she was provided treatment; whereas, a mishap occurred during the treatment of Nashwa apparently due to some wrong dosage injected by the nursing staff, which later led to her death.

The lawyer submitted that the incident was reported in the media extensively and hype was created. The SHC was informed that the SHCC conducted a unilateral inquiry into the minor’s death and its report was issued on April 23 wherein five recommendations were issued for the hospital to immediately act upon, which pertained to initiating disciplinary proceedings against the staff concerned who had injected wrong dosage, termination of recruitment incharge, following certain directions in respect of the nursing staff and the imposition of a fine of Rs500,000 on the hospital.

The counsel said the hospital was also directed to constitute a code blue team as per international recommendations. He submitted that although the law required that those recommendations were to be put up before the relevant board of the SHCC for its approval and further action; however, the plaintiff complied with such directives. He said despite compliance with the recommendations, the SHCC ordered the hospital to be sealed.

The lawyer argued that there was no proper order on record and it was only a hand written note on the memorandum of sealing which stated that the action of sealing the hospital had been taken in compliance with the order from the minister of health. There was no provision in the SHCC law for any ministry to exercise any such powers, the lawyer maintained. He added that even the commission itself had no such powers except under the Section 18 of the Sindh Healthcare Commission Act which was not applicable to the matter in question.

The counsel submitted that the SHCC did not issue any prior notice for such intended action and the sealing order which purportedly made reference to the Section 39 (1) (a) which relates to action against quacks and even the sealing memorandum had nothing to do with the plaintiff hospital and its sealing.

He argued that the entire action taken by the defendants was without jurisdiction and lawful authority besides being an extreme action that was taken without serving notice, due to which the same was liable to be suspended.

A single bench of the SHC comprising Justice Mohammad Junaid Ghaffar, after preliminary hearing of the lawsuit, observed that the contention required consideration and issued notices to the Sindh health department, the SHCC and others, calling their comments on May 24.

The SHC in the meantime suspended the impugned order with regard to the sealing of the Darul Sehat Hospital as well as the letter issued by the SHCC. The high court, however, directed the plaintiff to comply with the recommendations of the commission already made on April 23.