Darul Sehat owner, vice chairman get interim bail in Nashwa death case

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday granted interim protective bail to the owner and the vice-chairman of the Darul Sehat Hospital (DSH) in nine-month-old Nashwa Ali’s death case.

DSH owner and Chairman Amir Wali Chishti and Vice-Chairman Syed Ali Farhan were booked along with others for Nashwa’s death due to negligence and improper treatment at the health facility.

The applicants approached the high court after a sessions court revoked their bail a day earlier, saying that they wanted to face the trial but feared being arrested by the police.

Their counsel said his clients had nothing to do with the death of the minor, adding that she had died due to the negligence of the medical staff and action had been taken against them. He requested the SHC to grant his clients interim protective bail so they could appear before the trial court to face the proceedings. The court issued notices to the prosecutor general and others, and granted the applicants protective bail of Rs50,000 each.

After the sessions court had revoked their bail, Chishti and Farhan escaped from the court. They had been granted interim pre-arrest bail by a judicial magistrate for Rs200,000 each. Nashwa had died on April 22, around a fortnight after she was wrongly administered an injection at the DSH. According to her father Qaiser Ali, she was given an excessive injection that paralysed her.

Five people — Nursing Incharge Atif Javed, Nurse Sobia Irshad, Nurse Agha Moiz, Admin Officer Ahmer Shahzad and Security Incharge Waleedur Rehman — are in jail on judicial remand as the court seeks the final charge sheet in the case.

Earlier, two of the doctors — Dr Atiya Ahmed and Dr Sharjeel Hussain — had escaped from the court in a similar manner after their bail were also dismissed by the court. The hospital’s Executive Director Dr Shehzad Alam, HR Director Irfan Aslam, Nursing Head Dr Rizwan Azmi and Resident Medical Officer Syed Shabbar Hussain Zaidi have been nominated as absconders in the interim charge sheet.

The case is registered under sections 302 (premeditated murder), 322 (manslaughter), 337 (Shajjah) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 at the Sharea Faisal police station.

The histopathology analysis report of the child is still awaited. Around 25 people have been named in the interim charge sheet as witnesses. The court has ordered the police to file the final charge sheet by May 11.

Chronology

According to Prof Dr Naveed Rashid, Principal, College of Dentistry, Liaquat College of Medicine & Dentistry, Nashwa and her twin sister were admitted in the paediatric ward of the DSH on April 6 through emergency, with the complaint of motions and vomiting.

“In the morning of April 7 Nashwa crashed after the injection was wrongly administered to her and so she was immediately transferred to the ICU and put on a ventilator. Her father was given the option to shift her to the Aga Khan University Hospital [AKUH] or the Liaquat National Hospital [LNH] but he preferred to stay at the DSH.”

He said Nashwa’s twin was discharged in the meantime, adding that on April 8 her father asked for a summary to consult the AKUH’s paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) consultants, who were contacted and briefed about the case.

“On April 9 the PICU doctor contacted the father, as the space was available, but Mr Qaiser did not shift the baby as he was satisfied with the treatment at the DSH.” He said that on April 10 Nashwa was extubated — or weaned off the ventilator — and the baby was maintaining saturation with oxygen, while a CT scan of her brain was conducted.

He added the father took a neurological opinion from an LNH paediatric neurologist on April 11. “The baby was maintaining saturation on low oxygen and nasogastric feeding was started on April 12. The baby was shifted to the LNH on April 15.”

On May 2, hearing a petition seeking action against unlicensed health facilities in the province, the Sindh High Court’s division bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar was informed by a health department official that the Sindh Health Care Commission had sealed the DSH, but the bench rejected the step as a viable solution and sought streamlining the entire health care system.