Why did it take so long to figure out who was responsible for the sudden AIDS outbreak in Larkana?
The news of 13 children testing positive for AIDS made national headlines since it seemed that there might be a sudden unexplainable outbreak of the disease in Ratodero, a small town in Larkana district.
When the number of people being diagnosed with AIDS in the area suddenly spiked, authorities took notice and investigated.
It turned out, that a doctor by the name of Dr. Muzaffar had been injecting patients with infected syringes on purpose as a form of revenge. According to reports by Ary, Dr. Muzaffar has been diagnosed with AIDS and is currently on the last stage of his illness. And now authorities are also claiming that he might be mentally ill.
The issue however still remains; why was a doctor who apparently was on the last stage of an AIDS diagnosis as well as suffering from an alleged mental illness allowed to treat patients? Why was there no insight into his health and mental state by authorities beforehand? How was he successfully able to infect about 45 people with the disease without any check and balance.
A case against him has now been registered and he has been arrested but now it might be too little too late.
It has been revealed that there are 45 people who now have AIDS, out of which 25 are children because of Dr. Muzaffar.
In the last week alone, there have been several cases which caught media attention where doctors have been extremely negligent or just had plain criminal motives. The case of a little girl left paralyzed and then dead after being given the wrong injection comes to mind. Or the 26-year-old woman who went to get a toothache checked out but was instead drugged, raped and then killed also stands out.
The fact that health-care professionals can get away with gross negligence is a long-time issue in Pakistan.
Since the law for medical malpractice is as inadequate as any legal remedial framework in Pakistan, doctors usually end up avoiding any penalties for their actions unless there is a big hue and cry from the public and media.
Dr. Muzaffar was able to get away with injecting patients with whatever he wanted without any oversight. People who came to him for treatment were instead given a death sentence.There were no overseeing authorities or other doctors or even staff who knew of what Dr. Muzaffar was doing openly without any remorse.
When will there be laws passed to address medical negligence and give victims of medical negligence some kind of legal remedies which they can use to hold medical professionals liable? It’s about time laws were put in place or we can expect such cases of negligence to be a staple in every news cycle.
This Mother Accused The Staff Of A Private Hospital In Lahore Of Negligence And She Filmed Everything
How A Father And His Sick Child Leaving A Non-Functional Hospital Is Exposing Corruption In The Medical Sector
Cover Image Source: healthline.com/ary.com