11-member medical board declares Musharraf ‘unfit for travel’

Karachi
An 11-member medical board set up to examine General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s health to determine if he was healthy enough to attend the hearing of the Akbar Bugti murder case in Balochistan, declared the former president to be ‘unfit for travel’ on Thursday.
The report submitted by the board to the Sindh government declares the former president to be in need of ‘urgent’ consultation or treatment.
“Three of the lumbar vertebrae (five individual cylindrical bones in the lower back) are compressed and not in the right position,” said a source in the health department citing the contents of the report. “This renders the former president unable to remain seated or standing for an extended period of time, besides also causing cervical pain and backaches.”
Talking to The News, Dr Mohammad Taufiq Chaudhry, general secretary of the medical board, said deliberations had been completed and the final report and recommendations had been forwarded to the Sindh government.
Though he refused to divulge the details of health issues being faced by Musharraf, other members of the board did concede that the board decided that the former president had compressed lumbar vertebrae and was unfit for travelling long distances.
They said it was recommended in the report that Musharraf needed to get his lower back examined and have CT and MRI scans conducted.
Another source claimed that the medical board had also recommended a coronary angiography for the former president to determine the extent of blockages in his blood vessels so that the relevant treatment could be provided to him.
However, he did admit that Musharraf did not suffer from any heart condition at the moment. “The angiography has been recommended as a precautionary measure,” he said.
Interestingly, the 11-member board, instead of conducting its own examination at a health facility, had visited the former president’s residence on Wednesday and relied on the briefings and test results provided by General (retd) Musharraf’s personal physicians, who had also been present on the occasion.
The board was led by renowned spinal surgeon Dr Imtiaz Hashmi of the Aga Khan University Hospital, and the members included Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s executive director Prof Dr Anees Bhatti, Dr Taufiq Chaudhry, Prof Junaid Ashraf, Prof Maratab Ali, Prof Tariq Mehmood, Prof Khalda Soomro, Prof Nawaz Lashari, Dr Khalid Mehmood and Dr Rakhshanda Jabeen.
Dr Taufiq Chaudhry, secretary of the medical board, confirmed that the former president’s personal physicians had also been present when the board went to his house to ‘examine’ him.
He said the physicians had briefed members of the board about the health problems being faced by the former president and also provided them with the relevant reports, including MRI scans. He said Musharraf had told the board that he was suffering from backache and therefore could not travel to Balochistan or anywhere else.
“Every member of the board, who is an expert in his or her own field of medicine, examined the former president,” said Dr Chaudhry. “Only one of the board members, Prof Riaz Hussain Lakhnawala was not present for the examination.”
It is pertinent to mention that previous two attempts to meet the retired general had been unsuccessful due to security reasons.
On the other hand, the board also witnessed a change when Prof Dr Imtiaz Hashmi was appointed as its chairman in place of Prof Dr Anees Bhatti.
It had been set up by the provincial government on the request of Balochistan government to assess if the former president was fit to travel for the hearing of the Akbar Bugti murder case.