Daily Times

Sir: A few weeks ago, I visited my cousin who was suffering from some life-threatening condition and was admitted in the well-known General Hospital Lahore. She needed a mechanical ventilator for survival and the doctor did not seem too concerned about that. I asked him if the patient could be shifted to a ventilator immediately or else she would be in grave danger. The doctor responded arrogantly and ignorantly, saying that nothing could be done as there were only seven ventilators in the whole of the hospital and all of them were occupied. Then he added that nothing could be done but if I had someone who could call the hospital to expedite the process, it could be done in thirty minutes. Imagine my utter disbelief; in a hospital of more than a 1,000 beds, there are only seven mechanical ventilators and for even shifting the patient from the HDU to ICU on a ventilator, one needs what we call sifarish. The patient was on her deathbed and I was not able to get her a mechanical ventilator. When it was arranged, it was too late and my 18-year old cousin was in her grave.

I am quite sure that this is not the only case that happened in a public sector hospital but that many people die every day due to paucity of healthcare facilities. Lack of proper care, poor hygienic conditions, corruption and scarce evidence-based practice are some of the hallmarks of our healthcare system. Pakistan is on the 171th position out of 185 countries for allotting a minuscule 3.1 percent of the total GDP on health — even below countries like Afghanistan(eight percent) Iran (six percent) and India (6.1 percent). It comes as a shock to me, but it is not important for our leaders and policy makers who go abroad for their medical treatment. Being a medical student, I had a chance to work in a public sector hospital during my clinical study hours. It was in one of Pakistan’s largest hospitals, the Mayo Hospital in Lahore. When I entered one of the medicine wards for the first time, I was reminded of Hitler’s era. I had read about the atrocities of Nazis on the Jews; that ward gave me a deep understanding, a practical picture of what I had read: how the Jews were kept and killed in shoddy and rundown buildings. There were two or three people in one bed, in very dirty conditions; cats surrounding the beds, keeping a ‘vigil’ on the patients and nurses so rude and exasperated constantly that they were no less than the high ranked officers of the Nazi army for the patients (Jews).

In class, one of our teachers told us that a 20 year old patient came to the hospital for a laprotomy but mistakenly got a mastectomy ( removal of breast); there had been some mistake in notes. He chuckled and commented that people who come to public sector hospitals are the proletariat, otherwise like in any civilised country, there would have been many people being sued. Imagine, the rest of the life of the young girl who had that wrong surgery.

No wonder so many of our medical professionals work in the US because of the better opportunities available. The level of public awareness here is negligible. Curative treatment is given more importance than prevention. The population is increasing at the rate of two percent per year and there are not enough hospitals to accommodate the patients. There is another specialty of our healthcare system: the obsession with dead bodies. It is not only diseases but the medicines provided to patients also kill them, as seen in the Punjab Institute of Cardiology scandal. This apparently only exists in Pakistan; in the rest of the world, it is thought that medicines are given to save lives. The allied sciences like OT, MLT and Opthamology should be given importance too. Conclusively a government hospital proves to be a slippery slope for a patient towards his demise in this ‘necrophilic’ sector.

End of corruption, strong policy making with implementation, the psychological development of healthcare professionals, media public awareness of their rights, increase in the percentage of the GDP for the health sector and more importantly, honesty to deliver are some of the steps that may be followed to make things a little better.

ABBIS HAIDER

Lahore