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Nims docs insistence for rules, costs a critical patient his life [Hyderabad]

0 Comments | Times of India, The, Jul 25, 2010 | by Baseerat, Bushra

HYDERABAD: Making mockery of the Hippocratic oath, doctors at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (Nims) made a 55-year-old critical patient spend a precious 30 minutes time for filling in application forms and complete other formalities before he breathed his last.

Mohammed Khaja, a state government employee, was rushed to Nims in a 108 ambulance on Friday afternoon but was made to wait for about half an hour outside the hospital’s emergency medicine department (EMD).

A record assistant with the Board of Intermediate Education, Khaja had undergone a surgery for piles on Friday morning at Vishnu Nursing Home at Punjagutta and four hours after the surgery had convulsions and became unconscious. Noticing complications in the case, the doctors at the nursing home said they cannot handle the case and asked his son to shift him to Nims.

Khaja suffered three episodes of convulsions on his way to the hospital but when he reached Nims, he was denied entry or even immediate medical attention. When Khaja’s attendants and a `108′ staffer approached the EMD, they were told to complete the admission formalities. “You have to come in queue,” is all that the security guard said. This, despite being told that the patient’s condition was critical.

Khaja’s son said that he had to pull strings for his father to be taken inside the emergency room. But shortly after he was wheeled into the emergency department, Khaja, a resident of Yousufguda, breathed his last. “I pleaded with the security guard that it’s an emergency case. But they blindly asked us to follow the queue when there were hardly any critical cases
nursing assistant