When I Watched the BBC Investigation, It Felt Uncomfortably Familiar

Last night, while scrolling through my news feed, I came across a BBC Eye undercover investigation. I watched the documentary, and what it revealed has stayed with me.

As a kidney donor and founder of Voices for Kidney Patients, this issue is deeply personal to me.

What the investigation showed was deeply disturbing: syringes being reused on multiple children, no gloves, untrained staff administering injections, and contaminated medicine vials being shared between patients. The footage was recorded over 32 hours inside THQ Hospital Taunsa, a government facility in Punjab, Pakistan.

About the BBC Eye investigation

BBC Eye identified at least 331 children in Taunsa who tested positive for HIV between November 2024 and October 2025. In more than half the cases, "contaminated needle" was listed as the likely mode of transmission. Of 97 families tested alongside their children, only four mothers were HIV positive ruling out maternal transmission in nearly all cases.

The outbreak was first flagged by a local private doctor, Dr. Gul Qaisrani, in late 2024. The Punjab government suspended the hospital's medical superintendent in March 2025 after cases crossed 100. The BBC investigation, conducted months later, found that the dangerous practices had continued regardless. Among those infected was eight year old Mohammed Amin, who died shortly after testing positive. His sister Asma was later found to be infected too. Their mother tested negative.

Source

BBC Eye Investigates — "Hospital at centre of child HIV outbreak caught reusing syringes in undercover filming"

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyrd818gd2o‍ ‍BBC Eye Investigation, published April 14, 2026

What stayed with me wasn’t only the horror of what I saw. It was the feeling that I had seen versions of this before not HIV specifically, but the same breakdown of basic care that allows infections to spread unchecked among the most vulnerable patients.

While this investigation focused on HIV transmission, the same unsafe practices are one of the leading causes of Hepatitis B and C infections among dialysis patients.

Three years of asking the same question

For the past three years, I have been advocating for kidney patients in rural areas of Pakistan, people who urgently need access to proper dialysis care but have almost none. I founded Voices for Kidney Patients after donating a kidney to my sister, and that experience opened my eyes to how completely underserved these communities are.

Throughout this work, one question kept returning to me: why are so many dialysis patients contracting hepatitis? I kept encountering patients, especially those on long-term dialysis living with Hepatitis B or C. At first I didn't fully understand the mechanism. So I decided to find out from the inside.

What I learned working in dialysis

I went to work at DaVita. That experience changed how I see everything. Hand hygiene wasn't simply emphasized it was constant and non-negotiable. Gloves, face shields, cleaning protocols; all of it was strict, repeated, and deliberate. I remember sanitizing my hands so many times that the skin would dry and crack.

But I also understood precisely why. In dialysis, you are working with blood continuously. There is no room for shortcuts. A single lapse in hygiene doesn't just put one patient at risk, it can set off a chain of infections that moves quietly through an entire ward before anyone notices.

Dialysis patients are among the most vulnerable people in any healthcare setting. They come in three times a week, they are connected to machines, and they depend entirely on the people around them to keep them safe.

What I found when I went back to rural areas

When I returned to rural areas and tried to apply what I had learned, I ran into the same problems repeatedly. Gloves not being worn properly. No systems for separating machines used on hepatitis-positive patients. Medical waste disposed of carelessly. In some facilities, there wasn't even soap near the sink.

These are not advanced requirements. They are the absolute basics of infection control.

When I asked why these standards weren't being followed, especially in facilities receiving external funding, the answer I was given was: "We can't afford it."

That answer never made sense to me. If you are running a center whose purpose is to keep people alive, how can safety be treated as optional?

The part that affected me most: the patients themselves

Some patients told me they hesitate to say something as simple as "can you please wash your hands?" Not because they don't care about their own safety. But because they have no other option. They depend on that facility. They are afraid that speaking up might affect how they are treated. So they stay silent, even when they can see something is wrong.

I have personally known patients who did not survive , not solely because of their illness, but because the systems meant to protect them failed at the most basic level. That is something you don't forget.

Why the BBC investigation matters beyond Pakistan

The BBC's findings are not an anomaly. This is not even the first time this has happened in Pakistan. In 2019, a nearly identical outbreak in Ratodero, Sindh, saw over 900 children , most with HIV-negative parents — test positive for the virus, also traced to reused syringes at local clinics. By 2021, that number had risen to 1,500, and new infections were still occurring. While the BBC was filming in Taunsa, another cluster of cases emerged in Karachi.

These are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of a deeper structural problem: chronic underfunding of public health, staff shortages that pressure workers to cut corners, and an almost complete absence of accountability when things go wrong. Hospital authorities in Taunsa denied the footage was genuine, even as it was presented directly to them. That denial — in the face of 331 infected children — tells you something about how deep the accountability problem runs.

What I am working toward

Three years into this work, I have paused on opening a dialysis center not because I have given up on the idea, but because I refuse to build something that repeats the failures I have spent three years documenting.

The center I want to build will not simply be a place where dialysis happens. It will be a model, a facility where every hygiene protocol is followed without exception, where patients feel genuinely safe, and where care is delivered with the dignity these communities deserve. Alongside it, I want to establish a dedicated training center for dialysis technicians and nurses, because the gap in properly trained staff is one of the most urgent problems driving these failures.

That is the goal I am working toward. It takes longer to build something the right way. But I believe that done properly, one center can set a standard that changes what people expect and what they demand from every facility around it.

What needs to change now

More facilities alone will not solve this. What is needed is trained staff, enforced hygiene protocols, independent oversight, and a culture in which patients feel safe enough to speak up. A patient who knows their rights, who feels they will be heard that alone can prevent a significant amount of harm.

Healthcare is not only about treatment. It is about the responsibility that comes with being trusted with someone's life. A child taken to a hospital by a parent who trusts that system should not leave that hospital with HIV. That is not a high bar. It is the most basic one there is.

What the BBC uncovered in Taunsa is a tragedy. But it is also a warning for Pakistan, and for every healthcare system that allows accountability to erode quietly, one ignored protocol at a time.

This article references reporting from BBC Eye Investigations. All original reporting, footage, and findings belong to BBC.

— Naima Khan is the founder of Voices for Kidney Patients, a kidney donor, and an advocate for dialysis patients in rural Pakistan.