Sindh govt presents bill on treating wounded on priority basis

F.P. Report

KARACHI: The Sindh government presented a bill in the Assembly on Thursday which will make it possible for the injured to get treatment on priority basis and fulfill medico-legal requirements later on.

The proposed bill has been named after a girl-child Amal Umer, who passed away after being hit by a bullet shot by a police officer during an encounter last year.

In the bill, it has been recommended that all private and government hospitals should treat the wounded first and then complete the paperwork.

The bill stated that no hospital, either private or government, would refuse the treatment of injured and will provide treatment on emergency basis.

Every hospital should have two ambulances incorporating all latest first aid material and must have paramedical staff.

In a private hospital, the treatment on emergency basis will be on the government and if the patient’s condition is not critical then he can be shifted to a government hospital, the bill proposed.

It was recommended that asking for money and written work should be considered a crime.

The bill said that such cases will be taken up by sessions court and the suspect involved will be arrested.

Amal Umer case

On August 13, 2018, Amal was killed when a policeman fired a bullet attempting to kill a robber, who had looted her family a few minutes earlier in Karachi’s Akhtar Colony area as they waited at a traffic light to attend a concert on the eve of Independence Day.

The wounded child was rushed to NMC, where her parents claimed that the staff had refused to help them as it was a ‘medico-legal case’ and asked them to take the child to Jinnah Hospital. The parents further said that Aman Foundation had refused to send an ambulance till arrangements were made at Jinnah Hospital. By the time an ambulance reached them, Amal had died.