Four children injected expired drug in KPTH

Lives of at least four children were exposed to a certain risk when the nursing staff in Karachi Port Trust Hospital (KPTH) carelessly injected expired medicine to them.
Last week, during Thursday and Friday a "main medical store" in the KPTH issued at least four antibiotic injections, namely Taxiron 1000-mg, to the "ward store" which passed them on to the nursing staff in different wards of the hospital without checking expiry date of the medicines.
Demonstrating an unjustifiable irresponsibility in terms of professional and humanitarian considerations, the on-duty staff injected the drug, which had expired by August 2007, to the three-month old Aesha daughter of Iqbal, six-month old Abu Hurera son of Riaz, Zoya daughter of Syed Alam Shah and an unknown child.
According to sources in KPTH, the outdated injections infected the children in different ways as three of them went into a state of comma while Zoya, who had a urine problem, faced a shivering attack after being injected.
Sources said that doctors had discharged two children, who were in a serious condition after being infected in a bid to hide their life-threatening mistake. The expired medicine was also removed from the main store soon after the unfortunate incident took place, they claimed.
When asked weather the ward in-charge, Dr Qurrat-ul-Ain, and on-duty doctor, Naila, could be brought to justice if found guilty, sources replied the former had a strong backing of her husband who was a retired military officer and had also used his personal influence in the employment of his wife.
"The entire chain from main store to the nursing staff is responsible for the deadly mistake as all should check out the medicine before using it," said an angry father of one of the infected children.
Meanwhile, sources in Karachi Port Trust (KPT), terming the incident as deplorable said an inquiry would be conducted to bring the responsible persons to justice. "The Chief Medical Officer, Brigadier Nadeem is very much on to probe into the matter and stern action would be taken against those convicted," they said.
This reporter, however, was astonished when the KPT sources termed the life-threatening issue as "not a serious problem". "The children have been discharged and are in a good condition... this is not a serious problem as the expired injections have a low potency," they said.
They said that the aforementioned drugs had two expiry dates indicating 2007 as well as December 2008. Sources confirmed only three children to have been affected.