A Pakistani woman has died after a con man convinced her he was a doctor and performed a botched surgery on her. Shameema Begum, 80, is said to have died two weeks after former security guard Muhammad Waheed Butt performed an operation to fix a back wound the woman had. The surgery took place at a government-owned Mayo hospital in the city of Lahore, but sadly, Begum’s condition not only failed to improve but got worse and eventually led to her death, The Independent reports.
- The family actually paid Butt for the surgery. After Begun was taken to the hospital by her family on May 17, they referred her to the surgical ward for surgery. At that point, Butt approached her pretending to be a doctor and said he could help. The family then handed over an unspecified amount of cash to cover the operation and two further home visits to dress the wound.
- The wound simply didn’t heal – it got worse. The family alerted Butt to Begum’s declining health, at which point he encouraged them to go back to the hospital. Employees at the hospital told him they had no record of a Doctor Butt but that the man had previously worked at the hospital as a security guard. “We can’t keep up with what every doctor and what everyone is doing at all times. It’s a large hospital,” an administrative official at Mayo hospital told the AFP.
- No one knows what kind of surgery Begum actually had. However, the hospital did help police to arrest Butt as well as the surgical assistant who helped him perform the procedure. “Butt had posed as a doctor and made home visits to other patients in the past also,” Ali Safdar.
- Begum has undergone an autopsy as part of the investigation. Officials hope to determine whether the botched surgery had anything to do with Begum’s death. If so, you have to imagine that the charges against Butt will be even more serious.
