Staff at leading hospital swap medicines, risk patients’ lives

A case of medical negligence in the city’s renowned Saifee Hospital has come to light after wrong medicines were given to two patients by the hospital’s staff. One of the patients – a pregnant lady from Madanpura, received medicines of some other patient. When her husband brought this negligence to the hospital management’s notice, they asked him to submit his wife’s case papers.

Muzammil Ibrahim said his wife was consuming the medicine which doctors prescribed in the case paper. “As a daily routine she was taking the medicine, but suddenly she was unconscious and her health started deteriorating,” added Ibrahim.

He further stated later that he was shocked when he came to know that the medicine prescribed in the case paper was different what her wife was taking. “It was a medical negligence on a part of hospital staff as the case paper on which medicine were prescribed was exchanged with the another patient,” Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim claims that when he informed the hospital authority that wrong medicines were given to his wife due to the negligence of hospital staff, instead of accepting the mistake, the management asked him to submit his wife’s case papers.

The doctors said that such kind of negligence can cause death of patients. “People spend huge money to get treated at private hospitals and they are facing such life-threatening problems. Stern action should be taken against the hospital management,” added a senior doctor.

The director and doctors of Saifee hospital refused to comment or reply to messages, despite repeated efforts.