Sabina Mammadova, until recently a doctor at the Research Institute for Lung Diseases in Baku, has filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement to her job. The suit was filed at the Nizami district court, Mammadova told Meydan TV.
According to Mammadova, on 13 January she was unjustly dismissed from her job after she had an argument with Hagigat Gadirova, the director of the institute. “I spoke out against her at a meeting she held,” Mammadova told Meydan TV. “A video of the meeting
was shared
on social media. Afterwards, I was unjustly dismissed from my job.”
In the video, Sabina Mammadova protests against the institute director Hagigat Gadirova: “You sit here and plot intrigues against people. I am not going to listen to all this rubbish.” Mammadova then appears to leave the meeting.
The doctor stands accused by the institute of failing to diagnose the cause of a patient’s worsening condition and prescribing ineffective treatment, which failed to take into account the patient’s diagnosis of tuberculosis.
Mammadova told Meydan TV that the patient in question was a child who was admitted to the hospital in October 2017. The child was assigned to Dr. Aygun Hajialiyeva, who worked at the hospital unofficially, without any directive from the Ministry of Health. In December, Dr. Hajialiyeva was reassigned to another department, at the same time that the child’s condition was worsening. Left without a physician, the patient’s mother, Khumara Yusifova, asked Mammadova, who had worked at the institute since 1998, to treat her child. Mammadova determined that the child had been misdiagnosed, and prescribed a different treatment.
“I took care of the patient for a week, healed them and sent the child back home,” Mammadova told Meydan TV. “No action is being taken against the physicians who made the patient’s condition worse, concealed test results, established an incorrect diagnosis and came up with justifications for it, but I have been dismissed even though I healed the patient.”
The physician’s account is confirmed by a written explanation provided by the patient’s mother.
When contacted byMeydan TV, the Research Institute for Lung Diseases declined to comment. Director Hagigat Gadirova was not available.
The Ministry of Health’s press service denied Sabina Mammadova’s statements: “They are entirely lies and libel. The ministry will release an official statement about the incident in the next few days.”
