A pediatric surgeon has been arrested in Aktau following the death of a child, and the Police Department of the Mangystau Region has issued an official explanation for the doctor's detention. The medic is suspected of improper performance of professional duties, according to infohub.kz.
According to police, doctors at the regional hospital made errors in diagnosing and treating the child. Because the patient's condition deteriorated sharply, he was urgently airlifted to Almaty. However, despite doctors' efforts, the child could not be saved — he died in the hospital.
"According to the conclusion of a commission forensic medical examination, deficiencies were identified in the provision of medical care to the minor that could have contributed to the development of complications," the publication quotes the police response as saying.
Police explained that the pre-trial investigation is ongoing, with a set of measures being carried out to establish all the circumstances of what happened.
At the same time, Umit Ilyasova, deputy director of the Mangystau Multidisciplinary Hospital, spoke out in support of the detained surgeon. She wrote about this in an appeal to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs on her Facebook page.
"They detained a pediatric surgeon who has saved thousands of children. And, as colleagues said, they want to detain others as well. Legal lawlessness is once again taking place in the Mangystau Region. They summoned him supposedly to give testimony and detained him, without notifying our lawyer. There are no grounds for detention," she wrote.
The surgeon was reportedly detained on Thursday, October 1, under Article 128 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grounds for Detention). The doctor is currently in a pre-trial detention facility.