ISLAMABAD: After experiencing a number of incidents in which relatives of deceased patients had held protests and blamed doctors for the deaths of their loved ones, the Pakistan Institute of Management Sciences (Pims) has decided to offer counselling to the relatives and attendants of serious patients in order to avoid such incidents in the future.

The management has also requested the media to raise awareness that sometimes, despite taking all possible steps, patients cannot survive due to complications.On Saturday, 35-year-old Samiullah, who was on a ventilator the last two weeks due to swelling in his brain, had died.

A relative of the patient saw blood in the food pipe while doctors were removing it and started screaming, alleging that the food pipe was put in wrongly due to which Samiullah had died.

Relatives of the deceased held a protest and alleged that the patient had died due to doctors` negligence. They demanded that the licenses of the concerned doctors be cancelled.

Pims Executive Director Dr Raja Amjad told Dawn that there is a standard operating procedure for a clinical inquiry into every death but after the protest,he had announced to establish a three-member inquiry committee.

`Pims is a tertiary care hospital due to which many serious patients are brought here. Many of the patients are brought with no chance of survival but we have ano refusal policy due to which they are admitted,` he said.

`The patient, who was brought in from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Pims, had swelling in his brain and had almost no chances of survival. Despite that, we put him on a ventilator for 14 days. We removed the ventilator a number of times to see if his organs were working and he was put on again every time. The family knew that three professors were checking the patient on a daily basis but he could not survive. The f amily are holding doctors responsible for his death,` he said.

Dr Amjad said there are also past examples of relatives beating doctors and other staff up after the deaths of their loved ones.

`On the other hand, doctors also complain that relatives blame doctors even though they themselves know nothing about the disease. We have now decidedto offer counselling to mentally prepare relatives in serious cases so they are ready for the result,` he said.

Cardiology Conference Pims organised the 19th annual cardiology international conference on behalf of the Pakistan Cardiac Society in which 300 senior cardiologists from all around Pakistan and the world participated.

According to Pims Media Coordinator Dr Waseem Khawaja, 80 papers were presented during the three-day conference and discussions were held on various heart diseases and their treatment in the world and Pakistan.

Dr Amjad spoke about the Cardiac Centre and its latest equipment. He said angioplasty and acute heart attack padents are being provided free treatment at the hospital.