Editorial
One patient, two surgeries in two hours!
It is gross lack of medical professionalism
IDRIS Mia just had the misfortune of going through surgery twice in two hours when one should have sufficed. But he hardly had any choice in the matter. A careless surgeon and his team, operating on him for abdominal pain, simply forgot to remove a scalpel blade they had earlier used from inside his body. And then they stitched him up and sent him off to the post-operative room. It was then that his screams drew attention to his agony. An x-ray revealed the presence of the offending instrument inside his body. And so he was off to the operation theatre again.
One might draw the conclusion that all is now well with Idris Mia because that second operation removed that scalpel blade from inside him and made matters easier for him. But that is not the point under discussion. The issue is one of why such an absence of professionalism came to pass and that too at a reputed institution like Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Of course, in these past many years, there have been reports of the various painful episodes patients have been put through in the hospitals, public as well as private. Bandages, needles and even scissors have been detected in the bodies of those operated on. The question now is why such gross mistakes are made and what will or can happen if this kind of behaviour on the part of medical personnel leads to fatalities. Were a similar offence committed in the developed world, damages would be sought by the victim through the law. Unfortunately and unbelievably, in Bangladesh such offenders simply get away. In the case under study, a surgeon has had the temerity to make light of the scalpel blade incident by saying that it had been a simple mistake!
We sympathise with Idris Mia. And we ask that the health ministry take the matter seriously through ordering an investigation. Those who leave operating instruments inside the bodies of their patients, are a risk to medical science. Meanwhile, the DMCH authorities should be explaining to the public how that medical team botched the operation on Idris Mia.
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