The strange new world!
But she finds herself alone, no mother's touch to comfort her, no human voice to reassure her in the strange new world in which she suddenly finds herself. That was bad enough. But out of the blue she is exposed to something dangerously unfamiliar and extremely painful. A foul smelling creature is crawling all over her face and doing something to her face which is excruciatingly painful. It is easy to presume what must have happened then. Her little brain guides her into using the only defensive mechanism at her disposal: A shriek rises from her tiny throat, followed by another and yet another till perhaps her voice fails her and her little lungs lose their capacity to give voice to the torment that continues to be inflicted on her, bite after nasty bite, on a part of the body as sensitive as the face.
Labour rooms are sound proof!
How could she know that labour rooms are built to prevent noises from escaping the room? Thus noise from inside would not be clearly audible outside the room especially if it came out of tiny lungs and throat. Even if she had known this, of what use would it have been to her? Some experienced and caring member of her own species is always supposed to be around attending to every little need of the new born inmates. Instead here was this strange creature crawling on her face and cutting it up and chewing the torn parts and gulping those down its throat at leisure. The angels looking down must have shed tears!
Too many murderous rats around
From published photographs of the baby's face it is established beyond doubt that the rat went about his activity (natural for the rat, horrific for the baby) for quite some time, biting, chewing, and satisfying its hunger at leisure. There are more than a dozen bites on the little one's lips, cheeks and other parts of the face. It appears from reports that this was not a case of one rat suddenly making its debut in the hospital but the place is apparently crawling with them: So much so that the new administrator is hiring extermination experts to rid the hospital of rats. The incident has also exposed serious lapses in following procedures and taking precautions that should be routine. Various actions taken against the criminally negligent are fully justified.
Sue hospital?
It is good to learn that the little one's life is not in danger. That should not be the end of the matter. We certainly hope no effort in terms of expert help and expenses would be spared towards ensuring that the baby's face is restored to full normalcy. The parents should certainly consider suing the hospital for a substantial sum as compensation for the anguish suffered by them and the torture undergone by the little one. Any comments from PMA?
Burn to death or fall to death!
Hardly was the shock of baby eating rat fully absorbed by the horrified populace when they were exposed to a new one: the sight live on TV screens of a young man in his prime hanging by his fingers outside an eighth floor window in the sheer wall of a building on fire housing a state-owned insurance company on the busy Abdullah Haroon Road of the Karachi Metropolis. What made the sight particularly shocking was that young man hung there for a full 15 minutes in full view of hundreds of people who had gathered on the street in front of the building. A snorkel could not reach the site in time to save him. A piece of canvas or strong cloth held taut on the street by a ring of several people at the right spot on the street could probably have saved the life of the young man despite expected serious injury sure to be caused by the fall. But that is easier said than done.
Precautions ignored, procedures not in place
There have been several cases recently of fire in buildings located in commercial streets like I.I. Chundrigar Road among other places. In each case weaknesses including but not limited to one or more of the following were observed:
1) Fire-fighting facilities were missing or inadequate
2) Employees were not informed about location and use of fire-fighting equipment.
3) Fire escape routes were not clearly defined when defined at all. Employees were not briefed about them.
4) A fire-drill was never performed
5) Approach to the building was usually blocked for fire-fighting equipment by narrowness of approach-roads or by illegal parking blocking the way. Any comments from the Building Control Authorities?
For shame!
The deadly results are there for all to see. I am reminded here of a course I had attended in London a long time ago related to computer operations management. It was conducted in a very functional and well-planned building. I recall that though the course was of only a few days duration, nevertheless, a full half an hour was used by the instructor at the start of the course to tell us about safety measures relevant to the building. These included information about the emergency exit routes from the building (to be used in case, for example if a fire was detected in any part of the building) as also instructions about who should exit by climbing down by the stair way and who were authorised to use the lift down! Sounds like news from another world!
The case of the "killer medicine"
Was it a case of medicine turned poison or its misuse that killed a dozen people who took the now famous Tyno cough syrup? Soon after the gruesome incident there were some claims by some members of the medical profession that those who died after ingesting the medicine had taken an overdose, using the medicine as an intoxicant and that there was otherwise nothing wrong with Tyno if taken in prescribed doses. While the matter is under investigation, the medicine is taken off the shelves of sale outlets and samples sent to Laboratories for chemical and presumably forensic testing, over the sale of drugs without a prescription is identified with great gusto as one of the reasons behind such incidents.
Two absurdities
This last we think is a joke. If anyone thinks that over the counter sale without a prescription offers any difficulty to the buyer, he is living under a stupid illusion. In numerous chemists' shops around the country there are not many who would insist upon production of a proper prescription. PMA have appealed to the DG Health Punjab to constitute teams of drug inspectors to seal medical stores selling medicines without prescription. What? You want to close down perhaps 90 percent of medical stores? Another absurdity in default is the requirement that every sale outlet of medicines employ a qualified Pharmacist. You have only to look at the size of an overwhelming number of chemists' shops to realise that they cannot afford the services of a pharmacist and must be using one's name to meet the requirement in name only.
Questions
To return to Tyno, did the label or the literature carry the warning that an overdose could kill? Did the killer bottles of Tyno belong to a batch that had a composition (by mistake for example) that was different from the regular one printed on the bottle and the literature inside the packing? The question arises due to the fact that though Tyno has been presumably on sale for some time, these are the first reports of death resulting from its use. A satisfactory answer to all these question and firm corrective measures indicated including any additional legislative action needed and its proper enforcement are necessary if we are not to see repetition of avoidable deaths from misuse of medicine or lax inspection procedures or lack of enforcement of existing rules and procedures pertaining to sale of medicines.
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