Exposed 17th April 2016 - Fake Doctors In Government Hospital Of Lahore
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Night_Hawk
Siasat.pk - Blogger
[h=1]A brainless hospital in Lahore hired a fake brain surgeon[/h] By Noman Ansari Published: April 16, 2016
File photo of a doctor drawing medicine into a syringe. PHOTO: AFP
Ms Maima worked as a neurosurgeon at one of Pakistan’s most prominent government hospitals at Punjab, Services Hospital Lahore. There, she worked on numerous patients, performing several brain surgeries for a period of eight months.
One fine day, Professor Dr Rizwan Masood Butt, the head of the Neurosurgery Department, asked her routine questions during a medical round. To his alarm, she failed to answer properly.
You see, Ms Maima, who had been working on the brains of patients at Pakistan’s second biggest hospital for so long, was actually a fake. Yes, this fake brain surgeon had outsmarted all the brainless people working at the hospital.
Well, except for Dr Masood. Well, at least he caught on after eight months.
After he shared his concerns with the hospital administration, her credentials were sent to the relevant bodies for verification. Eventually, the hospital, and I’d like to reiterate that this is the second largest hospital in Pakistan, discovered that Ms Maima’s degrees were as real as Santa Claus.
As we all know, you qualify for your work either through experience, or education, or both, but at least one or the other.
Now, if my mechanic’s qualifications are dicey, I don’t mind as long as he is experienced and can get the job done, because mechanics usually learn after experimenting on hundreds of vehicles.
But a surgeon?
Anyone operating on my body better know what they are doing, or I’ll come back to haunt them from the dead.
I’m sure Ms Maima felt that, like a mechanic, she too could learn on the job, except these aren’t cars we are talking about, but human bodies. One mistake could either leave a patient dead or sipping liquid food through a cup for the rest of their lives.
How did it take this hospital eight months to see through this brain teaser? Did they not catch her before, because she was performing better than the other neurosurgeons? If so, what does it say about the rest of the department?
Needless to say, anyone being hired at the hospital should have their degrees checked again and again. We constantly hear horror stories of medical negligence in Pakistan. There are multiple factors behind this, of course, but are some of these doctors simply not qualified?
Of course, there is also another pattern in Pakistan, where we simply accept professionals without formal checks. Ms Maima was only fired from her job. Why isn’t she in prison? Why isn’t the hospital administration not in prison for allowing a fake brain doctor to operate on trusting patients?
Sadly, the answers point to another disease in Pakistan: nepotism.
Ms Maima was given her job because her fianc, Dr Jafar, was a person of influence, and carried a leadership position in the Young Doctors Association (YDA). He, apparently, had strong armed the hospital administration into giving Ms Maima her job.
It’s common knowledge that politics are a major component in many medical schools. While my own sister was studying medicine in Karachi, I would learn of numerous incidents where young male doctors-to-be would get involved in political fights in which hockey sticks and broken chairs were used as weapons.
Yes, these same young men would eventually go on to become doctors. Or perhaps they were merely trying to create more patients for their field.
This entire incident isn’t the actual disease. Rather, it is merely a symptom of a deeper problem in Pakistan.
While the matter was brought up in the Punjab Assembly, I doubt that either Ms Maima or Dr Jafar will be punished considering their ‘connections’. Although the blame will fall on the hospital administration, as it should, the deeper illness that festers this foul corruption in our system will be left ignored.
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/33873/a-brainless-hospital-in-lahore-hired-a-fake-brain-surgeon/
File photo of a doctor drawing medicine into a syringe. PHOTO: AFP
Ms Maima worked as a neurosurgeon at one of Pakistan’s most prominent government hospitals at Punjab, Services Hospital Lahore. There, she worked on numerous patients, performing several brain surgeries for a period of eight months.
One fine day, Professor Dr Rizwan Masood Butt, the head of the Neurosurgery Department, asked her routine questions during a medical round. To his alarm, she failed to answer properly.
You see, Ms Maima, who had been working on the brains of patients at Pakistan’s second biggest hospital for so long, was actually a fake. Yes, this fake brain surgeon had outsmarted all the brainless people working at the hospital.
Well, except for Dr Masood. Well, at least he caught on after eight months.
After he shared his concerns with the hospital administration, her credentials were sent to the relevant bodies for verification. Eventually, the hospital, and I’d like to reiterate that this is the second largest hospital in Pakistan, discovered that Ms Maima’s degrees were as real as Santa Claus.
As we all know, you qualify for your work either through experience, or education, or both, but at least one or the other.
Now, if my mechanic’s qualifications are dicey, I don’t mind as long as he is experienced and can get the job done, because mechanics usually learn after experimenting on hundreds of vehicles.
But a surgeon?
Anyone operating on my body better know what they are doing, or I’ll come back to haunt them from the dead.
I’m sure Ms Maima felt that, like a mechanic, she too could learn on the job, except these aren’t cars we are talking about, but human bodies. One mistake could either leave a patient dead or sipping liquid food through a cup for the rest of their lives.
How did it take this hospital eight months to see through this brain teaser? Did they not catch her before, because she was performing better than the other neurosurgeons? If so, what does it say about the rest of the department?
Needless to say, anyone being hired at the hospital should have their degrees checked again and again. We constantly hear horror stories of medical negligence in Pakistan. There are multiple factors behind this, of course, but are some of these doctors simply not qualified?
Of course, there is also another pattern in Pakistan, where we simply accept professionals without formal checks. Ms Maima was only fired from her job. Why isn’t she in prison? Why isn’t the hospital administration not in prison for allowing a fake brain doctor to operate on trusting patients?
Sadly, the answers point to another disease in Pakistan: nepotism.
Ms Maima was given her job because her fianc, Dr Jafar, was a person of influence, and carried a leadership position in the Young Doctors Association (YDA). He, apparently, had strong armed the hospital administration into giving Ms Maima her job.
It’s common knowledge that politics are a major component in many medical schools. While my own sister was studying medicine in Karachi, I would learn of numerous incidents where young male doctors-to-be would get involved in political fights in which hockey sticks and broken chairs were used as weapons.
Yes, these same young men would eventually go on to become doctors. Or perhaps they were merely trying to create more patients for their field.
This entire incident isn’t the actual disease. Rather, it is merely a symptom of a deeper problem in Pakistan.
While the matter was brought up in the Punjab Assembly, I doubt that either Ms Maima or Dr Jafar will be punished considering their ‘connections’. Although the blame will fall on the hospital administration, as it should, the deeper illness that festers this foul corruption in our system will be left ignored.
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/33873/a-brainless-hospital-in-lahore-hired-a-fake-brain-surgeon/
Night_Hawk
Siasat.pk - Blogger
[h=1]Fake neurosurgeon worked at Lahore's Services Hospital for eight months[/h] Amjad Mahmood — Updated 3 days ago
LAHORE: Revealing the sorry state of affairs in the health department, the Punjab Assembly was told on Thursday that a sham doctor continued to conduct brain surgeries in the government’s flagship tertiary care hospital in the provincial metropolis.
Through an adjournment motion, treasury MPA Amjad Ali Javed said that the so-called neurosurgeon, Dr Maima, performed surgeries in the Services Hospital, the second largest health facility in the country, for eight months.
She was exposed when she failed to properly respond to some queries of the hospital’s neurosurgery department head Prof Dr Rizwan Masood Butt during a round of the ward.
On suspicion, Prof Butt alerted the hospital administration, which sent her academic credentials to the University of Health Sciences, King Edward Medical University and other institutions for verification, only to learn the documents were bogus.
The motion claimed that a Young Doctors Association (YDA) leader, Dr Jafar, had introduced Ms Maima as his fianc and used his influence to get her selected as house officer in the hospital, where she worked under Surgeon Prof Dr Javed Gardezi in the general surgery ward for three months.
Then she was transferred to the neurosurgery department, where she operated upon many patients.
Though both Dr Jafar and Ms Maima had been sacked from their jobs, the motion said, the situation left a big question mark on the performance of the health authorities and their grip on the department’s affairs. Therefore, it demanded, the matter needed to be discussed thoroughly in the house.
Speaker Rana Iqbal pended the motion as, neither adviser to chief minister on health Khwaja Salman Rafique nor parliamentary secretary for health Khwaja Imran Nazeer, was present in the house.
This correspondent tried to contact Mr Rafique for the official stance on the issue but he did not take call on his mobile phone, nor he responded to the messages texted to him in this regard.
Sources, however, said a committee had been formed to probe into the issue in a month and the high-ups’ nod was awaited to make its report public.
The performance of parliamentary secretaries could be gauged from the fact that all but the secretaries of higher education and parliamentary affairs, were absent and the speaker had to put off tabling of at least 20 adjournment motions in the house because of it.
Meanwhile, six bills were passed by the house, while one was introduced in it.
Moved by Law Minister Rana Sana, the passed bills included the Punjab Forest (Amendment) Bill 2016; the Punjab Flood Plain Regulation Bill 2015; the Punjab Vigilance Committees Bill 2016; the Punjab Marriage Functions Bill 2015; the Punjab Economic Research Institute (Amendment) Bill 2016 and the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (Amendment) Bill 2015.
The Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Authority Bill 2016, was introduced in the house.
Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/news/1252234
LAHORE: Revealing the sorry state of affairs in the health department, the Punjab Assembly was told on Thursday that a sham doctor continued to conduct brain surgeries in the government’s flagship tertiary care hospital in the provincial metropolis.
Through an adjournment motion, treasury MPA Amjad Ali Javed said that the so-called neurosurgeon, Dr Maima, performed surgeries in the Services Hospital, the second largest health facility in the country, for eight months.
She was exposed when she failed to properly respond to some queries of the hospital’s neurosurgery department head Prof Dr Rizwan Masood Butt during a round of the ward.
On suspicion, Prof Butt alerted the hospital administration, which sent her academic credentials to the University of Health Sciences, King Edward Medical University and other institutions for verification, only to learn the documents were bogus.
The motion claimed that a Young Doctors Association (YDA) leader, Dr Jafar, had introduced Ms Maima as his fianc and used his influence to get her selected as house officer in the hospital, where she worked under Surgeon Prof Dr Javed Gardezi in the general surgery ward for three months.
Then she was transferred to the neurosurgery department, where she operated upon many patients.
Though both Dr Jafar and Ms Maima had been sacked from their jobs, the motion said, the situation left a big question mark on the performance of the health authorities and their grip on the department’s affairs. Therefore, it demanded, the matter needed to be discussed thoroughly in the house.
Speaker Rana Iqbal pended the motion as, neither adviser to chief minister on health Khwaja Salman Rafique nor parliamentary secretary for health Khwaja Imran Nazeer, was present in the house.
This correspondent tried to contact Mr Rafique for the official stance on the issue but he did not take call on his mobile phone, nor he responded to the messages texted to him in this regard.
Sources, however, said a committee had been formed to probe into the issue in a month and the high-ups’ nod was awaited to make its report public.
The performance of parliamentary secretaries could be gauged from the fact that all but the secretaries of higher education and parliamentary affairs, were absent and the speaker had to put off tabling of at least 20 adjournment motions in the house because of it.
Meanwhile, six bills were passed by the house, while one was introduced in it.
Moved by Law Minister Rana Sana, the passed bills included the Punjab Forest (Amendment) Bill 2016; the Punjab Flood Plain Regulation Bill 2015; the Punjab Vigilance Committees Bill 2016; the Punjab Marriage Functions Bill 2015; the Punjab Economic Research Institute (Amendment) Bill 2016 and the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (Amendment) Bill 2015.
The Punjab Agriculture, Food and Drug Authority Bill 2016, was introduced in the house.
Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/news/1252234
