Pakistan .. The death of a woman after an operation by a security guard!

A woman has died after a former security guard at a Pakistani hospital pretended to be a doctor and operated on her, police said today.

Shamima Begum, 80, died yesterday, two weeks after Muhammad Waheed Pat tried to treat a back injury in a public hospital in Lahore (east).

"We can't keep track of what every doctor is doing and what everyone does all the time. It's a big hospital," said an administrative official at Mayo Hospital in Lahore, who asked not to be named.

He pointed out that it was not clear what type of surgery the impersonator had performed in the operating room.

Public hospitals in Pakistan, where patients are required to pay some money for treatment, are often chaotic.

Begum's family paid for the operation, and two additional home visits to have her wound dressed.

But when the bleeding and pain worsened, her family took her back to the hospital, where they found out what had happened.

Her body was kept for autopsy to ascertain whether her death was a complication of a failed surgery.

"The security guard has been charged and he is in police custody," Lahore police spokesman Ali Safdar told AFP.

"Pat has been pretending to be a doctor and has made home visits to other patients in the past as well," he added.

Mayo Hospital staff noted that Pat was fired two years ago for trying to get money from patients.