Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Masuma Rahman issued the bail order for Dr Shahedara Begum on Thursday following a hearing
Published : 16 Jan 2025, 05:42 PM
A court has granted bail to Dr Shahedara Begum, a paediatric ophthalmologist at the Bangladesh Eye Hospital in Dhaka's Dhanmondi, in a case over conducting a “surgery” on the right eye of a child patient instead of the left one by “mistake”.
Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Masuma Rahman issued the bail order on Thursday following a hearing.
Dhanmondi Police sought permission to keep Dr Shahedara in jail until the case investigation was completed. The defence pleaded for the doctor’s bail, confirmed defence lawyer Abdur Rashid.
The defendant has been practicing medicine for the past 35 years, defence counsel Abdur Rashid told the court.
The child had some eyelashes inside his eye and it took only 16 minutes to clean it, he said. It was not any serious operation. The child’s family members initially said he suffered from some problems in his right eye, the lawyer said. It was cleaned. Then they claimed the child had troubles in the left eye as well. That one was cleaned too.
A five-member committee has been formed to investigate the incident. The plaintiff went to the police station and said they would withdraw the case. “The defendant is sick, please grant her bail,” he said.
No lawyer represented the plaintiff at the court. After the hearing, the court granted the doctor bail under a Tk 5,000 bond.
Dr Shahedara Begum was arrested in the early hours of Thursday.
According to the case documents, one-and-a-half-year old Irtija Ariz Hasan was taken to see Shahedara, who is also a strabismus surgeon, with some eye ailments on Tuesday, police said, citing the child's family.
The physician confirmed there was a dirt-like object in the left eye of the child. The child 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, she apologised and the child was taken to the operation theatre again and the surgery was completed on the left eye, the family alleged.
The child’s father Md Mahmud Hasan filed a case over the incident with Dhanmondi Police Station.