Police on Sunday arrested three staff members of a private hospital in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in a case pertaining to the attempted murder of an infant girl who suffered brain damage after she was allegedly administered an excessive quantity of an injection.
Sharea Faisal Station Investigation (SIO) Officer Aslam Mughal said that one of the held suspects, a female doctor, was on duty at the ward of the Darul Sehat Hospital where the nine-month-old had been admitted and she had allegedly given a double dose of injections to the nurse for administering the same to the infant child.
SIO Mughal said that apart from the female doctor, Dr Sobia, nursing in charge of the hospital, Atif Javed, and administration officer, Ahmed Shahzad, had also been arrested.
All three suspects will be presented before the court concerned on Monday to seek their physical remand for further investigation, he said.
“Sharea Faisal police have detained Dr Sobia of Darul Sehat Hospital in the infant girl’s paralysis case,” area SHO Safdar Mashwani confirmed.
Subsequently, Dr Sobia’s custody was handed over to the women’s police station, added the officer.
Sharea Faisal police had registered a case on the complaint of the infant’s father on April 15 under Sections 324 (attempted murder), 337 (Shajjah: causing any hurt) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the first information report, the incident took place when the father, Qaiser Ali, took his twin 9-month-old daughters to the hospital for treatment of diarrhoea on April 6.
On the morning of April 7, one of the two children, identified as Nashwa, was allegedly administered an overdose of potassium chloride (KCL). The infant’s father stated in his complaint that the injection was supposed to be administered through a drip and not intravenously.
Minutes after she was given the injection, the child’s lips turned blue and she started having trouble in breathing. She was moved to the intensive care unit (ICU) and was administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for 45 minutes, after which her breathing function was restored.
She was then put on a ventilator.
After the infant was taken off the ventilator on April 12, doctors informed the father that she “may have suffered a brain injury” due to the CPR performed on her for 45 minutes.
The FIR stated that a subsequent CT scan revealed that due to lack of oxygen to the brain, the child’s hands, feet, eyes, and mouth had been paralysed.
Presently, the infant girl is being treated at Liaquat National Hospital.
