Medical records removed, doctors silenced: report

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Jan 1: Authorities in Pakistan have removed Benazir Bhutto’s medical records from the Rawalpindi General Hospital and have forced doctors to remain silent, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The report, based on interviews with doctors who treated Ms Bhutto, claims they were under extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries that the former prime minister suffered in the attack.

“The government took all the medical records right after Ms Bhutto’s time of death was read out,” a doctor, who is not identified, told the Post. “Look, we have been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this is a disgrace.”

The doctors now find themselves at the centre of a political firestorm over the circumstances of Ms Bhutto’s death, the report added.

The Post noted that Ms Bhutto’s supporters believe the government is trying to hide the real cause of her death to protect those who committed this hideous act.

But it also said that some US medical experts, when asked to review an official hospital description of her wounds, speculated that a skull fracture and not a bullet wound killed Ms Bhutto.

The medical personnel in Rawalpindi, meanwhile, have mostly remained quiet.

“Our doctors have become caught up in this very emotional and political issue,” said Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, the doctors’ supervisor at the Rawalpindi General Hospital. “It’s a terrible position for our medical professions to be in.”