Akram's wife was flown abroad 'against doctors advice'

Huma Wasim, the wife of Pakistan cricketer Wasim Akram, was flown abroad against the advice of physicians treating her at an hospital here, a media report said Tuesday.

"A panel of 10 senior doctors of three private hospitals of Lahore were not in favour of taking Huma abroad (Singapore) keeping in view her serious condition," one of her physicians told the newspaper Dawn Monday.

Huma died Sunday at a Chennai hospital after battling it out for five days. Huma was being taken to Singapore for treatment from her home in Lahore in an air ambulance.

Heart and kidney complications arose while she was being flown. She had to be taken to the hospital in Chennai when the plane stopped there for refuelling.

The physician at the Lahore hospital said that after undergoing dental treatment in Karachi in September last, she had developed throat infection and had dry cough.

She received the treatment and in the first week of October her condition was diagnosed with having developed acute renal failure and increase in her white cell count, he said.

The doctor added that other complications Huma developed during the period reportedly were severe infection of kidney with acute tubular necrosis, vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels), and pulmonary hypertension (high pressure in blood vessels of lungs).

"She was improving clinically when Wasim Akram decided to shift her to Singapore for better treatment," the physician said and added that Akram told one of the doctors that he was under "immense pressure" from his in-laws to get her treated abroad.

Another doctor who examined Huma told this reporter that there was 'some confusion' in her diagnosis and this could be one of the reasons behind shifting her abroad.

The air ambulance carrying her from Lahore to Singapore had to stop over in Chennai when her condition worsened.

Munidar Rao of Apollo Hospital (Chennai) told a private channel Monday that when Huma was brought to the hospital she was in septic shock leading to multiple organ failure and doctors could not save her.

"I failed to understand as to why she was being shifted to Singapore in such a critical condition," he said.

The newspaper report said that Allama Iqbal Medical College Principal Javed Akram had also questioned the move, saying that there was no particular surgery, procedure, or medicine which was available in Singapore but not in Lahore in the case.

Last updated on Oct 27^th, 2009 at 17:32 pm IST--IANS