The incident has sparked outrage and concern among the public. (Representative pic)
A disturbing incident of medical negligence has come to light in Pakistan, where hospital authorities have been accused of swapping a baby boy with a dead baby girl, the Dawn reported. According to an official statement, the parents brought their four-day-old sick baby boy to a Children’s Hospital in Lahore after he fell ill. During the treatment, doctors at the hospital declared the boy dead and handed over the body to his father. But when the father took the body to his hometown, Gujranwala, for burial, he was shocked to find it was a girl. He immediately rushed back to the hospital with the body of the girl, claiming that they had brought their baby boy for treatment.
According to Dawn, this incident has prompted an investigation. After learning of the shocking accusations, the hospital authorities launched an inquiry into the matter. Later, the hospital authorities found that the baby boy had reportedly gone “missing,” the official said.
In his formal complaint, the father detailed the sequence of events and accused the hospital of substituting his son with the dead girl’s body. He urged the police to lodge a case against the hospital’s managerial officials and the doctors concerned for committing the crime and demanded the recovery of his son.
The Punjab Health Department in Pakistan swiftly responded to the incident, forming an inquiry committee comprising three senior doctors from the Children’s Hospital. The team was tasked with conducting a thorough investigation and submitting a detailed report to uncover the truth, per the outlet.
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In its findings, the committee declared that the investigating officers questioned all the relevant staff, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, who remained at the neonatal unit where the baby boy was provided treatment. They also examined the footage of the CCTV cameras.
During their investigation, the hospital management claimed that the parents had themselves taken away the male baby from the hospital against medical advice, without explaining the issue of baby “exchange”. The report also stated that the condition of the newborn got critical despite all possible treatments, and the doctors shifted him to the high-dependency unit to put him on ventilator support. However, the parents of the patient refused to get further treatment and left the hospital along with the baby after signing the Leave Against Medical Advice form, the report said.
The report did not address the issue of the alleged exchange of the babies. Meanwhile, police have lodged an FIR on the complaint regarding the alleged swapping of the baby boy with the dead baby girl by the hospital staff. The investigation is ongoing.
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