IO told to submit final charge sheet in Nashwa death case by May 25

A judicial magistrate on Saturday gave seven more days to police to submit the final charge sheet in the Nashwa death case as the investigation officer again requested further time to complete it.

The District East’s judicial magistrate XIX directed the IO to file the charge sheet by May 25. He observed that the court already had given enough time to the police to do the investigation. This was the fifth extension of the deadline to submit the charge sheet.

Nine-month-old Nashwa died on April 22 nearly two weeks after she was allegedly given wrong treatment at the Darul Sehat Hospital in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. According to her father Qaiser Ali, who is the complainant in the case, the infant was given an excessive injection which paralysed her.

A total of 13 persons, including the private hospital’s chairman Amir Chishti, vice chairman Syed Ali Farhan, executive director Dr Shehzad Alam, HR director Irfan Aslam, nursing department head Dr Rizwan Azmi, RMOs Syed Shabbar Hussain Zaidi, Dr Aitya Ahmed and Dr Sharjeel Hussan, nursing incharge Atif Javed, nurses Sobia Irshad and Agha Moiz, administration officer Ahmer Shahzad and security incharge Waleed-ur-Rehman have been nominated in the case.

Initially, the FIR of the incident was registered under sections 322 (manslaughter), 337 (shajjah) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code 1860 at the Sharea Faisal police station. Later, Section 302 (premeditated murder) was added to the case on the complainant’s request. The defendants opposed the inclusion of the section.

The police have named around 25 witnesses in the interim charge sheet, which says that the CCTV footage collected as evidence showed Sobia preparing the injection which Agha administered to the infant. Also, it added that the two suspects confessed to their negligence in the initial interrogation. The histopathology analysis report of the infant is still awaited.

Chronology

According to Prof Dr Naveed Rashid, principal, College of Dentistry, Liaquat College of Medicine & Dentistry, Nashwa and her twin sister were admitted to 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 that 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 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. On May 3, the hospital was reopened on the SHC’s orders.