With government run healthcare, you eventually end up with an exodus of qualified, civilized doctors, who justifiably refuse to work for slave wages. In their place, you get the likes of “Dr.” Sharad Shripadrao Pandit, who was no doubt “educated” in some Third World dump, as the only recourse if you’re ill. That’s exactly what happened when this quack misdiagnosed 15 year old Alina Sarag with “lovesickness” when she really had tuberculosis.
Alina Sarag was seen by more than five doctors at four different hospitals but medics failed to detect the curable disease.
Her distraught parents even called her GP more than 50 times about their daughter’s ailing condition over a four-and-a-half month period before her death on January 6 last year.
An inquest heard that her GP, Dr Sharad Shripadrao Pandit, accused her parents of “mollycoddling” her.
Shockingly, he even claimed her symptoms were brought on because she was ‘lovesick’.
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Mr Sarag also claimed Dr Pandit refused to test his daughter for TB.
He told the inquest: “He said, ‘We don’t need these tests, we are not going to get them done either.’
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Mr Sarag – who is also being treated for TB – told the inquest his daughter vomited up to 10 times a day and had to be carried to bed “like an old woman with weak legs”.
He added that he made more than 50 phone calls to the GP’s surgery in Birmingham but Dr Pandit failed to return his calls.
Mr Sarag said: “There was mass neglect. The medical profession, as soon as they mess up they hide.”
Alina first contracted TB in 2009 after a girl at her school was diagnosed with the illness.
She was prescribed a course of antibiotics at Birmingham Chest Clinic but medical staff never followed up her treatment.
Alina was struck down again in July 2010 after returning from a trip to Pakistan with her family.
The inquest heard a simple phlegm test would have shown Alina was suffering from TB but this was never carried out.
Instead, doctors shrugged off her family’s concerns and told them Alina was suffering from a chest infection despite being classed as a “high risk” patient.
Alina’s weight plummeted and at one point she was so ill she could only tolerate baby food.
After doctors at Heartland and City hospitals did not detect TB, Alina was admitted to Sandwell Hospital where she stayed for five days.
TB was picked up but no phlegm test was carried out and a chest X-ray was thought to have found a chest infection.
She later saw a clinical psychologist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital but was in too much pain to complete the assessment.
On January 6, 2011 Alina was rushed to hospital after suffering breathing difficulties and she died of a cardiac arrest.
Following her death, Alina, who attended Golden Hillock School in Sparkhill, Birmingham, a clinical review revealed doctors missed repeated opportunities to diagnose her condition.
