Arrest the doctors and staff involved, punish them for murder
We are outraged at the death of a kidney patient in the capital’s Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) in 2018, as doctors removed both her kidneys instead of the one that was infected. Although the patient’s son tried to file a case against the doctors involved for his mother’s death, he could not do so in these two years because of the lack of cooperation from the police and other authorities concerned. It took him two years only to get the autopsy report from the Dhaka Medical College forensic department, without which police did not want to register the case. Shahbagh police finally filed the case last Friday, only after the National Human Rights Commission issued a notice in this regard.
According to our report, Rafique Sikder, a filmmaker, admitted his 55-year-old mother Rawshan Ara to BSMMU for kidney treatment on July 1, 2018. After conducting multiple tests, doctors at the hospital advised to remove her left kidney and Rawshan had undergone the operation on September 5 that year. As her condition started deteriorating fast after the surgery and there was no vacancy at the ICU of BSMMU, Rafique took his mother to another private hospital in the city. Following diagnosis, doctors at the hospital found that both the patient’s kidneys were missing! Rawshan Ara died on October 31, 2018.
Deaths from wrong treatment, lack of treatment and medical negligence are, sadly, a common phenomenon in our hospitals, for which doctors are hardly held accountable. But this particular case revealed the criminal intention of some of our doctors, as they removed the woman’s kidney in a “planned manner with an ill intention”, as accused by her son.
We hope police will waste no time in investigating the case and arresting the doctors and staff involved in the woman’s death. The reason why the doctors removed both the patients’ kidneys must be found out to know whether it was a mere accident, or if they were involved with any human organ trafficking gang. Those involved in the crime should be punished according to the law; the family of the patient deserves justice.
