Daily Times

Three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif has been unwell for the last few days, and his family has expressed concerns about medical care available to him in the prison.

A special medical board that examined Sharif, who is serving a seven-year jail term in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case at Kot Lakhpat Jail, has recommended hospitalisation. He was taken to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology for tests amid strict security, only to be escorted back within a few hours.

The stress from multiple legal cases and the death of his wife Kalsoom Nawaz in London at a time when he was in Adiala Jail earlier last year must have taken their toll on Sharif’s health. The government needs to take recommendations of the medical board seriously.

The PML-N leadership has warned that if anything happens to their leader, Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Punjab government will be held responsible. Meanwhile, the government is ignoring Maryam Nawaz’s complaints about lack of adequate medical care for her imprisoned father. The government should, at least, put in place a mechanism to release information about Sharif’s health to the public, so that his party members and workers can stay updated. The family has been relying on media reports, which may or may not always be reliable given the widespread tendency for sensationalism.  The ratings driven news media are running reports without proper verification, citing anonymous sources. One TV channel went so far as to claim in its report that Sharif suffered a heart attack in the jail. This was immediately rebutted by PML-N leaders. They say such reports are being leaked to demoralize the workers. Media outlets must uphold ethics of the profession and bear in mind that sensationalism is completely unwarranted in this case. It will be best to err on the side of caution, and to refrain from running unverified reports.

Moreover, the situation demands refresher courses for the medical community as well as our reporters’ fraternity on the ethics of medical journalism. According to American Medical Association guideline for ethical physician conduct in the media, physicians are to “protect patient privacy and confidentiality by refraining from the discussion of identifiable information, unless given specific permission by the patient to do so”. The similar obligations are to be followed by the media.

The treatment being meted out to Sharif suggests the return of the culture of vengeance in politics, which once-rival parties – PPP and PML-N – promised to bury by initiating the Charter of Democracy in 2007. Former president Asif Zardari gave it a boost with his reconciliation policy, while Nawaz Sharif tried not to invoke political victimisation during his rule. Both PPP and PML-N leaders, however, were hounded by courts for their actions.

Sharif may not be a political prisoner, given the nature of the jail term handed down to him, but he remains the only three-time elected PM of this country. Prison rules make it mandatory on the authorities to make arrangements for proper medical facilities for him. The existing rules leave much to the whims of jail or home department authorities, and successive governments have failed to amend these rules, laid out in the colonial era Prison Act of 1894. The Sindh government has taken the much-needed initiative to improve the law with the Sind Prisons and Correction Act of 2019. The law introduces reforms and prisoners’ safety and rights besides measures to rehabilitate the prisoners to make them acceptable in society once they are released. Other provinces must follow Sindh’s lead and initiate similar reforms.

While these are medium term measures, on an urgent basis, the provincial and federal authorities must look into the medical care provided to the former PM, and address concerns raised by his family about his wellbeing in the jail. *

Published in Daily Times, January 25^th 2019.