LabAid’s real face

Lab Aid – The real story behind the fancy ads (neonatal case)

From: Tanvir Imam, Ali
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 9:17 AM

Subject:

Our newly born child have had suffered from mistreatment, carelessness & negligence from Lab Aid Specialized Hospital. Here’s our story.

Our child was born on 11-December-2007 in a perfect condition with 3.4 KG weight. She was a healthy baby altogether. The only matter was that she didn’t cry after being taken out to the world! Maybe then the Lab Aid people decided to make her cry anyhow possible! She had to see the cruel face of the world at such a young age!

After she was taken out from the womb, she was handed over from the gynecologist to the pediatrician. When the pediatrics doctor and nurse were cleaning the baby, they kept a heater running just beside the tray where our baby was lying. The heat went straight to our child’s body and her body was burnt badly. Her body was burnt from the middle of her back to the toes on the right side. But the doctor and the nurse didn’t pay attention to the burn and wrapped her in clothes in an effort to hide the mishap which eventually worsened the injuries. After a while she was taken to Neonatal ICU (NICU) for keeping in routine observation. She was lying there unattended for 3 hours with burns on her body! Then when our family members went to the NICU to see her how she was doing, a part of her body was uncovered and it was too red! They asked the nurses what happened, the doctor and the nurse said it was nothing! But we had taken out all the clothes from her body and oh god! there were blisters all over half of the right side of her body! All this time the doctor and the nurse kept mum and didn’t tell anyone anything hoping it would go unnoticed! And still after the burns were discovered the Lab Aid doctors put pressure on us to take over the baby. But we denied and demanded a proper treatment of the burns. We called in a renowned pediatrician and a burn specialist from outside to see the baby and their expression to the Lab Aid doctor was- what have you done to the baby!

She was then admitted in the NICU for treatment of the burn injuries. She cried all through the night in pain.

Below I would like to point out some characteristics of the Lab-Aid people in response to this incident throughout our stay in the hospital:

• A heater was brought in the Operation Theatre and nobody at the hospital knew how to use and where to use it! There was no training given to the doctors or the nurses on that newly brought machine!
• Lab Aid doctors tried to cover-up their misdeed and tried to hand over the baby to the family even after the family came to know about the burns.
• Instead of admitting the mishap and giving instant and proper treatment to the baby for the burns, the Lab-Aid people made the injuries even worse with time! 
• Even after it was finally discovered that the baby received burn injuries from the Operation Theatre- backed by opinions from renowned pediatricians and burn specialists from outside, Lab Aid consultant and doctors still tried to deny that it was their fault! 
• They tried to establish with their best effort that it was a case of “congenital infection”! Fortunately, my wife’s sister, being a doctor, was present in the operation theatre and she was the proof of a healthy baby being handed over to the pediatrics department of Lab Aid! Probably they will never allow any outsider into their OT again!
• After her burn treatment began, Lab Aid consultant, doctors and administration officials tried hard to release the baby from the hospital even before she was out of danger!
• The doctor who had burnt our child was given duties in the NICU to watch over our child! How ironic!
• We waited for 5 days for the Lab Aid officials to say something on this issue, and then we went to the administration to notify the incident. They already knew it all from the very first day but didn’t come to us even with a word of condolence and had the mindset to let things go and cover up the incident. The pediatrics consultant and duty doctor finally admitted but with the words said to us as: “it is a simple burn, nothing severe and there will be no marks on the baby’s body. 
• We had to stay in the hospital for 13 days (10 days in addition to what would have been required in normal cases) for her treatment. It was 13 days of misery, tears, suffering and tension. We had taken her home after she was out of danger. She is still recovering.

A child not even passing 5 minutes on earth had to know the cruel picture of mankind!Yesterday, on 23-January-2008 a press conference was held at Press-club, Dhaka on mistreatment by Lab Aid hospitals where some victimized families participated. I have also attended the press conference to unfold my story. A number of newspaper journalists and TV channel persons covered the conference. A feature has been aired on this conference on Banglavision TV channel news yesterday. Pls watch eye on the newspaper & media to know about other stories.

Hope something good comes out of our efforts.

Thank you.

Ali Tanvir Imam
Assistant Manager