Remembering Amal Umer: The Child Whose Death Corrected A Glaring Flaw In Our Laws

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Who was Amal Umer?
Source: Dawn

Amal Umer was a 10-year-old child going to attend her first concert with her family when tragedy struck. The family was looted by some robbers at a traffic signal in Karachi. After few minutes, Amal was hit in the head by a bullet. It was not clear where it had come from. The incident happened on 13th August 2018.

The Hospital Refused Treatment

Amal was taken to National Medical Centre (NMC). She was rushed to the emergency room, but then the staff told her parents that they should take her to another hospital.

The hospital refused treatment because the case was of a medico-legal nature. This basically meant that the police were first obligated to investigate the cause of the injury because of a criminal aspect associated with it.

The parents asked to arrange for an ambulance, but the hospital staff was quite reluctant to do that. But after some time, they called Aman Foundation and Amal’s mother asked them to arrange a bed at Agha Khan Hospital(AKU) or Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC). They said they needed to confirm a few things and would call her back.

The NMC doctors asked the parents to take the child in the car. None of the staff members were willing to accompany Amal’s family for medical assistance.

Amal never made it to the AKU or JPMC. She took her last breath in the small room of NMC.

“This whole system had failed in every way possible. That night, the security and health departments did everything in their power to make sure our child would not make it back home, that she would never see Independence Day, another birthday, laugh or sing, or be able to hug her sister ever again.”

Beenish Umer, mother of Amal Umer.

The Culprit

Initially, the police kept on insisting that the bullet was fired by the robber. The Umer family on the other hand said that he had no reason to as the robber had already looted them when the bullet hit their daughter. An inquiry was carried out and a review of the CCTV footage revealed that the bullet was fired by an on-duty policeman.

NMC Prepared a Fake Report

The Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar took suo moto action against the case. The committee investing Amal’s death conveyed to the Supreme Court that NMC tampered the date and time of the child’s death.The hospital prepared a report which said that Amal had died before reaching the hospital.

Amal Umer Bill

In January 2019, Sindh Assembly approved the Amal Umer Medical Bill, Sindh Injured Persons Compulsory Medical Treatment Act 2019. Under this, the hospitals will be granted a working license only if they commit to take in critical patients despite legal formalities. The Sindh government has stated that it will pay for all the expenses of those brought in critical situations.

NMC is a private hospital and the staff did not want to get caught-up in legal matters. But was that the time to think of legalities? Was the hospital’s reputation more important than Amal’s life? 

These are questions that will and should continue to haunt our collective conscious.

With the passage of the new law, here’s hoping that no child’s precious life is lost at the hands of reluctant healthcare practitioners ever again.