Fact-check: True. Janitor did pretend to be doctor at Punjab hospital
Government officials and an inquiry report have confirmed the incident
Updated Tuesday Jun 25 2024
Online users claim that a video, viewed tens of thousands of times on social media, shows a janitor at a hospital in Punjab’s Wazirabad posing as a doctor and attending to patients.
The claim is true.
Claim
On May 16, a user posted a 19-second video on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which a person is purportedly seen examining patients at a hospital.
The social media user identified the man as someone who was employed as a janitor at the Wazirabad Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital in Punjab. The user further wrote that the footage shows a sweeper at a civil hospital in the Wazirabad area of the province acting as a doctor and checking patients.
The video had been viewed over 149,000 times and reposted over 1,000 tweets, to date.
Identical claims also took off on Facebook here and here.
Fact
Government officials and an inquiry report have confirmed the incident.
Dr Hassan Tariq, the medical superintendent of THQ Hospital, verified that the janitor indeed impersonated a doctor at the nursing station. He performed tasks such as checking a patient's blood pressure and adjusting a drip.
The janitor has been removed from the job, the medical superintendent added.
Abdul Sattar, the janitor featured in the video, admitted to the incident, stating he attended to patients at the nursing station. He and the person who recorded the video have both been dismissed from their roles.
Khawaja Imran Nazir, Punjab's minister for primary and secondary healthcare, and Ali Jan Khan, secretary for specialised healthcare and medical education, corroborated the occurrence and confirmed the termination of the involved staff member following an inquiry conducted in May.
An inquiry report dated May 14, conducted by THQ Hospital Wazirabad, further revealed that two nurses had instructed the janitor to attend to patients in the hospital's emergency ward.
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