Boy from Shikarpur gets whistle removed from throat at Civil Hospital

A team of ear, nose and throat (ENT) experts at the Civil Hospital, Karachi, (CHK) has removed a whistle from the throat of a seven-year old boy from Shikarpur who was brought to Karachi after health professionals in his native town as well as tertiary-care facilities in Sukkur and Larkana failed to remove the whistle from his body.

Led by ENT surgeon Prof Dr Atif Hafeez Siddiqui, a team of ENT experts and anaesthetists performed two-and-a-half-hour-long bronchoscopy, procedure to remove foreign objects from respiratory tract, and successfully removed the whistle from his throat.

“This boy, Zakir Ali, who was blowing an instrument, got the whistle stuck in his throat a couple of days back in Shikarpur. As no facility was available to remove the foreign object from his throat at his native town, he was sent to Sukkur from where he was referred to Larkana, where doctors referred him to the CHK for bronchoscopy,” Prof Siddiqui told The News.

“We have removed several hair pins and other objects from the upper respiratory tract of girls who accidentally swallow these pins while putting on or removing their scarves. This is becoming a common practice but unfortunately, this facility is not available at most of the tertiary-care health facilities in the province”, he added.

Calling for more staff, equipment and operation theatres for ENT specialists at the CHK, Prof Siddiqui said that owing to unavailability of operation theatres, poor patients were compelled to have their common surgical procedures at private hospitals.

He urged the Sindh government to provide more doctors and other allied health staff to the CHK ENT department as well as the entire hospital.