THE EDITOR

DAILY DAWN

KARACHI SPECIALIST’S SPECIAL TREATMENT

This is with reference to the above-titled letter written by Shaista Nasim Khan and published on July 07-97. I agree with her and I am sure she is talking about the same doctor, my family had the misfortune to come across. This heart specialist is "an import" and is supposed to be a wizard in his field. According to him, he was personally asked to come to this prestigious hospital by the spiritual head of his community.

A couple of months ago, my brother suffered pain in his heart and we rushed him to the hospital. We were advised to put him in the CCU for monitoring his condition. Since my brother is well known in his sphere of work, a lot of people found out, and as usual proffered their ideas. A good many of them suggested this specialist’s name and we used our contacts, IOUs, and ‘parchis’ to get him to see the patient. All was well until he came out and extended his prognosis. In a haughty and contemptuous manner, he matter-of-factly told us that we would be minus one brother within no time. Moreover, he did not want our brother to be his patient and that our brother could go and "buy" a heart specialist. Our sister-in-law, who was already under tremendous pressure, swooned and it was difficult to get her settled.

The doctor with a disdainful look on his face just walked away and left us to contemplate the ramifications of his egotistical statement. We were worried like anything and we contacted our elders for advise. At the same time, the pragmatic among them advised us to take the patient to Dr. Azhar Farooqui. Again, the proverbial ‘contacts’ were used and the good doctor suggested an angiogram at Liaquat Hospital. He did it and the results were "All Clear"! If we had listened and heeded the counsel of the imported doctor, we would have been at that time planning (Allah forbid) another funeral because our father had passed away a couple of weeks ago (again due to a doctor’s wrong action).