Kidney patient dies after hospitals refuse treatment.

Byline: Shafiq Butt

SAHIWAL -- A prayer leader and Quran teacher died of kidney failure after the dialysis centres of Chichawatni THQ and Sahiwal DHQ Teaching hospitals allegedly refused to admit him before he tested negative for coronavirus.

Muhammad Azim, a resident of Chichawatni Saddar Bazaar, was a prayer leader and Quran teacher at Madressa Darul Uloom Ghosia Rizwiya in Chichawatni. He was a kidney patient for 18 months and had been advised dialysis after every 60 days. He used to get the procedure done at the Chichawatni THQ and Sahiwal DHQ Teaching hospitals where it was conducted on subsidised rates for the needy at Rs3,000 to Rs4,000.

Azim's family claimed that he had delayed his last dialysis because of the lockdown. On Sunday, his condition deteriorated due to urine blockage and his wife took him to the THQ hospital. But the doctors refused to admit him despite looking at his 18-month medical history on the plea that the new standard operating procedures required a negative test report for coronavirus before a regular patient was admitted.

Azim's wife told Dawn that no laboratory in Chichawatni had the facility to test for coronavirus and even if they had taken him to Lahore, it would have taken at least two days to get the results. The family tried to convince doctors, but none agreed. Instead, they advised the family to go to Haji Abdul Qayyum...