Murtaza Bhutto

A: For medico-legal purposes we were not entertaining patients, but we are
not rejecting any cases either, since we had been warned by the government
about two years ago after such rejection of a Saudi student, who was brought
to the hospital dead.
Q: Which ministry had warned and why?
A: The doctor after verifying from the files said the health department of the
government of Sindh. They had said patients should not be refused to be
entertained but should be given the best possible treatment, and later be
shifted to the designated hospitals. The direction from the government was
that first aid should be given to patients before shifting them to the
designated hospitals.
On cardiac arrest having taken place in the case of Mir Murtaza, on account
of blood oozing out, the doctors tried to give him oxygen to the entire system
of his body and that was not found possible because of the disruption of the
tongue by a bullet attack. Even the senior doctors were unable to give oxygen
through the mouth or nose.
Dr Abdul Haleem Kazmi, an anaesthetist trained in England, was also unable
to put the endotracheal tube through the mouth or the nose to supply oxygen,
and we simultaneously pressed the heart for external cardiac massage. Then
failing to pass the tube we cut through his neck in the wind pipe, to pass the
tube to give oxygen to his entire body system, so as to bypass the obstacles
from above, because the tongue was swollen and ruptured. But he had lost a
lot of blood.
We started giving blood through volume plasma expanders as a replacement
till such time as we could get the matching blood. At the same time, three
teams were working to save his life, by inserting the endotracheal tube,
giving external cardiac massage and providing plasma expanders. If
oxygenated blood is given for more than three minutes, then there is
irreversible damage to the brain.
We had realised very earlier that this exercise might be an exercise in futility
as he had died neurologically at 10 pm because the brain was damaged and
the pupils had dilated, and we continued to make all efforts hoping against
hope to resuscitate his heart. We went on with our efforts and around 10:55
pm and the heart started ticking again, but it did not start pumping fully. As
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