Eye Specialist Dr Shahedara Begum of Bangladesh Eye Hospital on Thursday received bail from a court in Dhaka.
Dr Shahedara Begum was produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court in Dhaka by police. The investigation officer (IO) of the case Sub-Inspector Saiful Alam of Dhanmondi Police Station, pleaded to the court of Magistrate Masuma Rahman to keep her detained in jail. However, the lawyer of the accused pleaded for her bail. After the hearing, the court granted her bail.
Shahedara Begum, a consultant pediatric ophthalmologist and Strabismus Surgeon of Bangladesh Eye Hospital, has been arrested in a case filed on charges of mistakenly operating the wrong eye of an 18-month-old child.
Police arrested her from her Elephant Road residence around 2:00am on Thursday, said Dhanmondi Police Station OC Ali Ahmed Masud.
Irtiza Ariz Hasan was brought to the Bangladesh Eye Hospital at Dhanmondi on Tuesday for treatment of one of his eyes. But the doctor mistakenly conducted a surgery on his healthy eye, according to the case statement.
The physician confirmed there was a dirt-like object in the left eye of the child. Irtiza Ariz underwent all the necessary medical tests required before the surgery, was given anesthesia and taken to the operation theatre.
However, after the child was brought out of the operation theatre, the family saw that the surgery had been performed on the right eye instead of the left one. After they informed the doctor, the child was taken to the operation theatre again and the surgery was completed on the left eye, the family alleged.
Dr Afroza Khanam, a consultant of the Bangladesh Eye Hospital, said the child was brought to the hospital on Tuesday and Dr Shahedara was put in charge of the treatment.
"She conducted tests and found foreign bodies (hair) in his right eye which needed to be removed. The [foreign bodies] were irritating the child's cornea. The doctor gave the child anaesthesia to induce sleep and removed the hair and dirt from the right eye. Later she covered the eye with bandages as the cornea was sore."
