EDITORIAL: Two harrowing recent cases in Punjab show how easy it is for quacks to play with lives in this country. In the first incident at the Lahore’s Mayo Hospital a former security guard – fired two years ago — returned impersonating as a doctor and was able not only to talk the family of a female patient suffering from severe backache into paying a fee for an operation but actually take her to an operation theatre and perform surgery on her with the help of a colluding technician. The entire episode smacks of poor administrative control. For, the patient also must have spent sometime in the post-op care room, yet no one seems to have bothered to check the name of the surgeon which is normally registered on every patient’s medical chart along with his/her diagnosis and treatment instructions. The fake doctor later visited the patient’s home twice charging fee for bandage change. It was only after her condition deteriorated that the patient was brought back to the emergency of the same hospital, which was when the staff realised what had happened and the fraudster was handed to the police, and the technician sacked.
Still, there are several disturbing questions that remain to be answered such as that, how could an unauthorised person enter a premier medical institution’s operation theatre? Why did the post-care room staff fail to note down necessary details? How could the unsuspecting patient leave without a proper discharge slip? The relevant authorities need to launch a proper investigation into the episode and pin responsibility where it belongs. Around the same time, the fake doctor was putting the life of a woman at risk three children aged five, seven and nine years, were brought to Multan’s Nishtar Hospital in a grievous condition after taking a cough medicine prescribed by a quack claiming to be a homoeopathic practitioner. One of the children died on the way to the hospital and the two others soon afterwards. The police have arrested the man and sealed his ‘clinic’. Initial reports suggest the Punjab Healthcare Commission had issued a licence to the ‘homoeopath’ responsible for the tragic death of children. It is unclear though whether some unscrupulous elements in the Commission were involved in issuing a licence to him or the licence was forged. What is clear is that the menace of quackery is widespread. There are an estimated 70,000 quack-run clinics and illegal medical treatment centres across Punjab despite the fact that it’s been a while since the previous Punjab government launched a crackdown on quacks and their clinics.
Both the Lahore and the Multan cases came to light because of their extreme consequences. But people routinely suffer at the hands of unqualified medical practitioners all over the country. This must come to a stop. All provincial governments need to take serious notice of this threat to public health and launch a comprehensive clean-up campaign against the menace of quackery.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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