Free medicine saga: Doctors struggle with solution as 2 more die

LAHORE:
As two more hapless patients succumbed on Sunday, doctors at Lahore’s public hospitals struggled to find a way to deal with the fatal reaction of a free medicine that was distributed to patients at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology.

“The contaminated medicine used by these patients contained arsenic, lead or mercury,” Dr Javed Akram, principal of the Allama Iqbal Medical College and head of a committee probing the mysterious deaths, told reporters on Sunday.

While the death toll has already risen to 25, an increase can be expected. “There are still 105 such patients under treatment in different public hospitals in Lahore. Around 50 of them are in a critical condition,” Dr Akram said, adding that all patients have been instructed to immediately discontinue use of medicine attained from the PIC. He said that 30% of the patients have returned the medicines.

Lahore, which was the centre of the dengue outbreak in Punjab, appears to be worst-hit by this disease as well as Dr Akram said that around 90 to 95 of the under-treatment patients are from Lahore.

Dr Akram said that a detailed press briefing will be organised on Monday on an inquiry report on why these medicines were administered and what went wrong. “Around 25,000 patients had attained these medicines but the problem has occurred in one batch.”

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on Sunday, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid leader and former chief minister of Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi blamed the Punjab government for the incident. “My government had made hospitals for heart patients while the current government is killing these patients by giving them fake drugs,” he said.

Source: Free medicine saga: Doctors struggle with solution as 2 more die – The Express Tribune