Mardan Medical Complex: Doctors call off strike as police register case against district nazim

PESHAWAR: The doctors kept the health services in the Mardan Medical Complex (MMC) suspended on second consecutive day on Thursday against what they called “misbehavior” of Mardan District Nazim Himayatullah Mayar with their colleagues.

The doctors’ strike, however, caused serious hardships to indoor and outdoor patients who had come from different far-off areas of Mardan, Nowshera, Swabi, Buner, Malakand and Charsadda districts.

The doctors called off their strike later in the day after the police registered First Information Report (FIR) against the district nazim. It is third FIR lodged against District Nazim Himayatullah Mayar by the doctors in Mardan. The issue started on Monday last when a patient Shabir, a resident of Jhanday area of Takht Bhai tehsil in Mardan, was brought to MMC at 3:30am with acute abdomen pain.

According to the hospital administration, the patient was taken to the Accident and Emergency Department of MMC with his pulse 90/mnt, BP90/70mmhg, toxic and severely dehydrated. The casualty staff immediately started resuscitation and gave him fluid and antibiotic analgesic and PPL.

Baseline investigations were carried out and the patient was diagnosed as a case of bacterial peritonitis, most probably visceral perforation. The MMC administration said that after resuscitation, the patient was shifted to the operation room for laparotomy at 1pm The hospital administration after initial inquiry found that per operatively peritoneal cavity was full of puss and gut contents with perforation in the distal ileum (enteric perforation).

“Peritoneal lavage and ileostomy was performed. In the meanwhile, the patient was haemodynamicaly unstable. He was resuscitated by the anesthetist but he didn’t recover from anesthesia, despite all necessary measures. At 08.30pm, the patient was declared dead,” the MMC administration explained in its inquiry report.

Some independent sources in the hospital told The News that before shifting to the MMC, the patient was earlier taken to a private practitioner and then the District Headquarters Hospital, Mardan.

Though it was a public holiday due to Kashmir Day, the sources said, a specialist surgeon (senior registrar) was present on duty along with two other doctors. They attended the patient.

“Honestly speaking, the patient was not stable when he was brought to the MMC in middle of the night and it was too late when he was taken there. However, the doctors in the MMC followed all the standing operating procures. A trained surgeon personally handled the patient and then called a qualified anesthetist when the patient was shifted to the operation theatre,” said one senior doctor. Pleading anonymity, he said the patient could not recover from anesthesia and died on the table in the operation theater after his surgery.

“As I mentioned, there was nothing wrong on the part of doctors. They followed the standard protocol but he couldn’t recover from anesthesia. Even then the doctors made several attempts to resuscitate him but to no avail,” said the physician.