Prisoner’s chances slim, say doctors as family pleads for India’s help

IANS/Lahore/Amritsar

With doctors at the Jinnah Hospital in Lahore saying that Singh’s condition was “critical” and “chances of his survival are slim,” the family pleaded that he be allowed to be taken back to India or any other country immediately for treatment.

“When we met him in the ICU, he was just lying there. Doctors told us that his condition was critical. Please help us to save my brother’s life,” Singh’s elder sister Dalbir Kaur said in Lahore. She is accompanied by his wife Sukhpreet Kaur, and two daughters, Swapandeep and Poonam.

“His daughters called him out ‘Papa’. His wife called out to him. But he lay there like a stone. I could not understand what to say,” she said.

“I plead to our government with folded hands. Please take him to any country for his treatment. Don’t waste time, save him. He is completely unconscious. He does not know anything. He is on ventilator.”

She said: “I want to know how the iron rods, bricks, cutters and other things reached inside the prison to carry out the attack on Sarabjit. It was a big conspiracy.”

Singh is on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

“Singh was diagnosed on Saturday with 3/15 Glasgow coma scale (GCS); that elaborates upon his critical state of conscious level,” a doctor said.

He said the GCS was a neurological scale aimed at assessing the level of consciousness after profound head injury and a reading of 3/15 indicated deep unconsciousness.

Singh’s treatment has thus turned out to be a major neurosurgical challenge for the medical board constituted by the authorities, the doctor said.

Anjum Habib Vohra, a senior neurosurgeon and principal of the Post-Graduate Medical Institute; Zafar Chaudhry, head of Jinnah Hospital’s neurological department, and Naeem Kasuri, neuro physician of King Edward Medical University are members of the medical board.

The doctor, who was not named, told Dawn newspaper that Singh had suffered a critical bone fracture.

During clinical assessment, it was established that Singh had diffused brain injury over a widespread area of his head that led to unconsciousness.

Doctors also discovered a haematoma, a localised collection of blood outside the blood vessels, which was greater than 3cm, indicating that the patient was in dire need of surgical intervention.

However, the medical board examined Singh twice on Saturday and doctors were of the view that there was no need for surgical intervention at this stage.

Meanwhile, India’s National Commission for Scheduled Castes has summoned officials of the ministries of external affairs and home over the issue of helping Singh.

The Commission has also directed the central government to send a team of specialist Indian doctors to Pakistan for his treatment, a senior members of the panels said in New Delhi.

“At this time, he should not be treated as a prisoner but as a patient. His life should be saved on humanitarian grounds. So many Pakistani patients come to India for medical treatment,” Raj Kumar Verka, vice chairman of the commission, said.

He appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate government-to-government talks with Pakistan to help Singh.