A life cut short by antibiotics

Ghulam Farid was the brightest kid in his year of the village school where I went. All kids have their gifts; his was calligraphy and folklore, especially a poetic rendition of a quarrel between a man's wife and his mother. He used to have the whole school spell-bound when he recited this one. He was equally bright in reading and writing. His favourite pastime was to memorize spellings of long English words which he then challenged the rest of us to match. 

His father was a carpenter. Farid couldn't continue his school beyond year 10 (only a few of us were fortunate enough to do that). He became the village ‘painter’, making his living from his calligraphy skills, preparing billboards, banner, posters or simply painting colourful slogans on walls for local politicians. He made a good living out of his hobby and was very well known and respected for that. But then came the ‘panaflex’ – the computerised printing of billboards. Farid was out of work for sometime, then he became an assistant to a property adviser in the town. This new job required a daily motorcycle ride from the village to the town. He couldn't or didn't want to move his family to the town. He was married to a local community health worker and had three boys and four girls with her.

Returning from work one night on his motorbike he was distracted by an electricity pylon being erected in a field. Unfortunately at the very same moment the motorcyclist coming from the opposite direction was also completely absorbed in what was going on in the field. They had a heads on collision. Farid broke his leg. The other motorcyclist sustained injuries to his head. Back home, Farid was treated for broken leg but full recovery would take painfully long to enable him to go back to work. Therefore, those around him put him on a high dosage of antibiotics to speed up recovery. Different combinations were tried as suggested by people with different levels of expertise. He started showing signs of initial improvement but then there were other discomforts in his body. Someone suggested a laboratory test to establish the health of his liver after all that medication. Samples were taken to a lab in the city where the lab technicians could not believe that this person was still alive. They expressed their shock as following; ‘if the normal measure for this test is 50, it has reached 5000 for this patient. It must be a miracle that he is still alive’. Farid died before the lab results arrived back home.

He was going to turn 40 this year. The whole village mourns the death of this talented son. Everyone says over-medication killed him.

Antibiotics are sold ‘over the counter’ in most places in Pakistan. Public health system has its challenges and qualified private practitioners are often too expensive to be accessible for most people. People like Farid.