Anaesthesia overdose causes another brain-death

MULTAN - The alleged negligence of doctors of Nishtar Hospital has brought another young man, Muhammad Asif, 28, to the deathbed, as the anaesthesia overdose administered to him during an operation allegedly caused his brain-death.
The ill-fated patient was taken to Nishtar Hospital’s emergency ward on September 12 by his parents on complaint of severe pain in stomach. However, the doctors diagnosed the pain as appendicitis and decided to carry out his operation.
‘A phone call received by the anaesthetist Dr Jawwad Alvi has cost us the life of our young brother. He (doctor) received a call on his mobile phone and came out of operation theatre while the anaesthesia was being administered to my brother,’ claimed Hasnain Malik, the elder brother of Asif. He alleged that the negligence of the anaesthetist resulted into anaesthesia overdose, leading to cardiac arrest and subsequent brain-death of his brother.
It is the third incident of anaesthetists’ alleged negligence in a row that has come to the light during the last few days. The first two incidents, one that of Imanae Malik and the other of Fakhra, have been taken up by the Chief Justice of Pakistan under suo moto action.
The initial CT Scan report compiled by the radiology department of Nishtar Hospital on September 19 described the condition of the brain of the patient as ‘Hypoxic ischemic injury with cerebral edema’. ‘The report states a particular state of brain in which oxygen and blood supply to it is suspended and it gets severely hurt,’ explained a doctor on condition of anonymity after going through the report.
The body of Asif, a to-be-father after three months, has started deforming. ‘His hands and feet have deformed during the last couple of days while multiple infections have also started growing in his body,’ disclosed Hasnian Malik.
The anesthetist Dr. Jawwad Alvi, however, refuted all allegations, claiming there was no negligence on his part. ‘Every one in 10 patients can suffer cardiac arrest during the operation as all medicines directly affect the heart of the patient,’ he claimed, adding that the said patient was recovering and he would soon be on his feet. He said that he was shifted to his home because the infectious environment of ICU was causing complications in his body.
‘Normally the appendicitis operation takes just 30 minutes while the doctors kept my brother inside operation theatre for over two hours,’ claimed Hasnain Malik while describing the situation on the operation day.