One of our acquaintences in Karachi came down with COVID-19. She was taken to AKUH. AKUH refused to admit her until Rs. 1.2 million was deposited by her family. She passed away the very next day and the hospital refused to refund anything. The family paid Rs. 1.2 million to Aga Khan Hospital for her death.

Doctors at AKUH, Karachi taunted a boy “he is pretending to be in pain” and his medical report contained several errors describing him as a girl. The boy later died. Full story at https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/boy-dies-in-pakistan-due-to-medical-negligence-1.2240102

Yesterday I attended a party in my office where a colleague who has liver cancer received the good news that a matching liver has been found for transplant. A specially prepared “Liver Cake” was the highlight of the event which had a big picture of liver made with chocolate over the white cream on top. As everyone was enjoying a piece of the cake, I could not help but think about the incompetent GI physician of Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi who did not recommend the liver transplant to my older sister at the right time and she lost her battle with liver disease over two years ago. The AKUH physicians would tell you “Allah ki yehi Marzee thee” (“It was the will of God”). However I will not allow them to hide their incompetence behind this line which is part of our Iman. It does not free them from the burden of the wrong treatment and in fact  they collected hefty amount of fees from our family in doing so. I request that the supreme court chief justice take suo moto notice of the AKUH fleecing the public and defending their inept physicians against any complaints. They had the most ridiculous claim that my sister did not advise them to go for liver transplant.

Untreated water is pouring down into the ward from the ceiling in Aga Khan Hospital.

In 2004, a woman had died after negligence in Aga Khan Hospital, Karachi. Now, two professors of AKU have been charged.

http://waqtnews.tv/regional-news/23-Dec-2017/84194

If you or your family members have suffered wrong diagnosis or excessive  billing at AKUH, please share your details with us as comments on this page. Your anonymous comments would appear on this website.

The AKUH administration has demonstrated a callous and careless attitude towards patients and  their families time and again.When you approach them with any type of complaint against their physicians, the first and only response from them is to deny any wrongdoing at the hands of their physicians. They then try to blame the patient for any problem. This attitude has to change and it must change for good. The neutrality of the physicians investigating any such case of negligence should be above and beyond any doubt. All the complaints and their reports must be made public on AKUH website. Filing complaint should be established as a clear and visible  process.

Have you or anyone you know received treatment at Aga Khan Hospital Karachi?
(polls)

If yes, did you feel the treatment was not up to the expectations?
(polls)

We have recently expanded our outreach to the news organizations in Pakistan. We have contacted the following organizations informing them about the establishment of this website and requesting them to cover it in the news so that the victims can come forward.

1) aajtv
2) express tribune
3) geotv
4) jang newspaper
5) ummat
6) 24news
7) Neo-News
8) Awaz News
9) Abb Takk News
10) 92 news
11) ARY news
12) Dawn news
13) CNBC TV Pakistan
14) KTN News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDslTOhSZHM

This is really insane and if true, it must be stopped. Father of a baby born in AKUH tells that each newborn is sent to NICU at a cost of Rs. 80k to 100k per day.
https://youtu.be/3C83MvYb_ws

(verbatim from gotti who posted it on Siasat.pk forum on Feb 19, 2013)

Aga Khan’s standard has been completely ruined because of nepotism and hiring incapable and jaahil doctors from interior Sindh and south Punjab by this Zardari government. These graduates only went there because they couldn’t make it to big universities in Karachi and Lahore and were able to get in here through nepotism to begin with.

The local graduates of Aga Khan don’t want to work in Aga Khan as they always want to migrate and have been doing so, which is why, although, the standard of the university is great, that of the hospital isn’t at all.

May Allah bless you for taking care of your beloved mother and allow you success in this battle against the firauniyat of Zardari and Aga Khan foundation that originally got its land for the hospital to claim that its a charity institution but only gives charity to Aga Khanis/Ismailis and not regular Pakistanis.

The land should have been given to Hakeem Saeed for his Hamdard university and hospital.

(Originally published in October 2016 On the first death anniversary of my sister)

This is the story of a patient who followed her doctor’s advice in letter and spirit and prescriptions fully and completely, only to suffer extremely because of the fact that the doctor did not recommend the most suitable treatment to her at the right time, albeit he was aware of it.

I suspect it was simply because he does not offer that treatment himself and perhaps he did not want the patient to go to some other doctor for fear of losing his revenue stream from the patient. The purpose of writing this note is not to malign that particular doctor. My sincere objective of this note is to ensure that the doctors in general can be prevented from causing suffering and pain to their unsuspecting patients and to protect the life and well-being of scores of patients who may still be getting wrong or incomplete medical advice from their respective doctors. This note cannot bring back my beloved sister however it can ensure that the concerned physician is reprimanded for the blatant mistakes committed by him. I hope that in future, someone’s sister or mother or brother would not be subjected to the hardships due to the incompetence of this or the other physicians. The suffering of the patients’ near and dear ones is another highly disturbing factor.

The problems started when a physician working for AKUH recommended Dr. Ashfaq , Gastroenterologist to us for treatment of my sister in 2008. Dr. Ashfaq is a GI affiliated with Aga Khan Hospital, Karachi (see his official profile at aku website). My sister was suffering from Hepatitis-C at that time. She was treated with some medications and some injections were prescribed which she followed strictly.

After several years of treatment with Dr. Ashfaq, her Hep-C changed into cirrhosis of liver. Dr. Ashfaq recommended TACE procedure to reduce or shrink the tumor that had resulted from cirrhosis related complications. The radiologist at AKUH performed TACE in July 2014 and we believe that the amount of medicine to be delivered was not calculated correctly. This resulted in severe side effects including a three-week long fever due to overdose.

Once the TACE was done, the results showed that the tumor had subsided. At this time, we requested Dr. Ashfaq to outline the future course of action for the patient. He recommended just to follow up with him without giving us the viable option of liver transplant. We suspect that he did not want to recommend anything that could not be done or controlled by him in order to retain the patient. That is why he mentioned that he would repeat TACE when or if the problem resurfaces.

We came to know later that a cirrhotic liver can develop more tumors in the long run and the best and safest option was to perform liver transplant. We were willing to undertake any treatment without regard to its cost. He knew it very well as we had shown our commitment to my sister’s well-being.

However, despite collecting hefty fees over a period of years, he never even once mentioned the option of liver transplant. Ultimately, in March 2015, CT-SCAN of her body revealed a very serious occurrence of liver tumor which had reached portal vein.

We sent the report to Dr. Mohammed Reila, a well known surgeon who performs liver transplants in India. After detailed study of the CT-SCAN reports, Dr. Reila gave his professional opinion that it was too late to do anything. He ruled out the transplant due to the fact that the tumor had reached the veins. Replacing liver would not do any good as the tumor would damage the new liver as well. Dr. Reila commented that had the patient been brought when the TACE was carried out (i.e. July 2014), she had bright chance for a successful liver transplant.

Similarly, Dr. Wasim Jafri of Gastroenterology Department at AKUH said that the best time to do the liver transplant was when TACE was carried out in July 2014 and the tumor had subsided. Unfortunately, his own GI had hidden this advice from us due to his desire to retain the patients with him as much as possible.

My sister passed away on Oct 24, 2015 due to complications resulting from liver tumor that had caused the liver to stop functioning. I requested that the senior doctors affiliated with Aga Khan Hospital conduct a disciplinary inquiry into this matter and ask Dr. Ashfaq the reason why he did not recommend liver transplant at the time TACE procedure was done. If it is proven to be a case of negligence, suitable action must be taken to ensure that such negligence is not repeated in the future for other patients. We have come to know that my sister’s case is not the only one which was mishandled by Dr. Ashfaq in the similar manner.

After writing letters and following up with the head of the department at AKUH, the doctors panel met me on December 28th 2015. I was surprised and shocked that the panel blamed my sister that being a doctor herself, why she did not suggest the option of liver transplant. Unfortunately, they insisted on this idiotic argument knowing fully well that my sister was not a GI and she had retained the services of an experienced and most expensive GI to get the best advice possible. Has anyone ever heard of a patient being blamed that why the patient did not suggest a specific treatment option? The patient who was suffering from the worst trauma due to failing liver was supposed to miraculously suggest a cure for herself while paying huge amount of consultation fees to the GI.

The investigation report from AKUH clinical affairs department established the fact that Dr. Ashfaq is an incompetent GI and the more he stays with AKUH, the more damage he would cause to the reputation of the hospital. In fact, our family had a good trust on AKUH which has now eroded after this sad episode of negligence, wrong medical advice and incompetence of one person.

In the end, I request the AKUH management to make sure that Dr. Ashfaq is prevented from providing such wrong medical opinion to his patients and let him send a written apology to our family. Our family has paid a huge amount of money for the treatment of my sister for last several years to AKUH and Dr. Ashfaq. I request AKUH to donate an amount of Rs. 500,000 to a charitable fund in memory of my sister.

(verbatim from Facebook page of AKUH, originally posted by Haad Bin Hassan)

i wasnt expecting such an irresponsible and pathetic service from the so called best hospital in karachi. The emergency staff needs some serious counseling.

(Review verbatim from google.com reviews posted originally by Faris Mushtaq)

Unfortunately the rating is not less than 1 star!!! The bad and the most worst hospital in Karachi. A patient is just a subject of interest to the university students. They all gather around a patient for practical. Insensitivity and meanness is clearly observed. Only their machinery is authentic and nothing else. Totally cheap and poor doctors. The hospital is just a money making place….

Despite collecting hefty fees regularly, Dr. Ashfaq and others at AKUH never gave the option of liver transplant to my sister. It was because they did not have the option at AKUH and they did not want the money paying patient to go somewhere else. Are these doctors really worth the label of “Masiha”?

This website has a new and more powerful address.  It is http://akuhvictims.org. It will now be shared widely inside and outside Pakistan to allow people to be aware of the issues with Pakistan’s most expensive hospital.