Daily Times

Let me first clarify that the PTI was not the first party to start a political campaign against corruption. Before Imran Khan, Mian Nawaz Sharif won the 1997 general elections working on the same agenda. Sharif was the one who started the accountability process, which in the ‘wrong hands’ of Saif-ur-Rehman looked more like a victimisation exercise. Asif Ali Zardari and many other opposition leaders were put behind bars for their alleged crimes.

I needed to get this fact out before proceeding further because I did not want the discussion to be derailed by the claims and counterclaims made by the PML-N or PTI.

The question, therefore, I am not asking is who brought up corruption as the single most important party agenda. The question that I am asking is: how did corruption become so important that it overshadowed any other political narrative? Also: if financial embezzlement really explains our national quagmire as much as it is blamed for or are we missing the point altogether focusing on pneumonia while missing lung cancer? The last question is if we should only accuse politicians for this problem-as we do-while ignoring the major bulk of it being done somewhere else. By the way, Sharif failed in getting the so-called lost capital back through his version of accountability back in 1997, and so has Imran Khan in 2019.

Let me try to explain corruption with a simple example of how medicine is practised in Pakistan. From both a technical and a layman’s perspective, it’s true that the majority of Pakistan-based, Pakistan-trained physicians do not follow the proper standards of care. They fall way behind. Even prescriptions written by them do not meet international protocols. BBC conducted a huge survey, and documented it a few years ago. A couple of things require a little more explanation. First, I am not talking about simple MBBS doctors without any further training; I am alluding to specialist physicians with a postgraduate degree. Second, money and resources cannot be blamed for underperformance. Prescription writing is a good example; you don’t need a lot of resources to write them professionally. And third, in a government hospital setting I can understand that the sheer volume would not let doctors follow universal protocols. But how about the private settings where doctors charge thousands of rupees to spend a few minutes on one patient?

In short, mismanagement, inaccurate diagnosis, unnecessary testing, delay in care, kickbacks from pharmaceuticals, and above all, professional negligence, we find the profession is infected with every virus. Does it mean all Pakistani doctors are corrupt? They don’t care about people, their suffering? No, most physicians I have known for decades are morally upright people. To call them corrupt would be unfair. Yet they mismanage, misdiagnose and mishandle patients. Why? First, they did not get enough training to take care of complex patients with multiple active medical problems. The system does not have resources, expertise, time or patience for their skills to develop. After that inadequate training and even less resources they are compelled to take care of these illnesses on their own. Contrast this situation to the West; an equally complex patient would see multiple physicians at the same time, who collaborate and communicate with each other on every step. Our training does not teach how to make that happen. Has your physician friend ever tried to be in touch with the doctor who is taking care of your relative or vice versa? Confused, the attending physician either rudely hangs up, refuses to talk at all or walk out of the room after either insulting you or your friend.

Sharif failed in getting the so-called lost capital back through his version of accountability back in 1997, and so has Imran Khan in 2019

In summary, under difficult circumstances, inadequate training leads to a lack of confidence, which results in faulty medical decision-making that looks like corruption, arrogance and/or insincerity. The bottom-line though is not corruption itself but incompetency, and not only personal incompetency, the incompetency of the whole system, the failure of community. When provided with enough support, guidance and resources, the same physicians perform adequately in the Middle East.

Similarly, after passing the CSS and getting a few months of training, a police officer is sent to fight the organised crime that has grown roots in society and infiltrated their own department. I am sure that very quickly, an officer finds out how crime has penetrated politics, judiciary, and sometimes even the military. The result? Not any different from doctors: inadequate training to deal with complicated issues, absence of a supportive environment and bureaucratic hurdles lead to practices that may easily be confused with corruption. Journalists, lawyers, engineers and pharmacists also face the same dilemma, and so do the politicians. Many of their decisions, which seem like open-and-shut cases of financial kickbacks reflect either their own incompetency, or that of the system, or just the spite of the accuser. And most of the time, it is the latter not the former.

The crux of the matter is that when you hear the word ‘corruption’, your mind should perceive incompetence not dishonesty. And before thinking of investigating, you must ask yourself if the person who claims to have uncovered a scandal can, in fact, understand, analyse and interpret the data. Is that person really qualified to criticise the rationale of a financial decision? And do all bad decisions signify malice? If you deem that person did not carry the proper qualification or expertise, then hold that person accountable as a sign of malevolence while reaching out to the accused simultaneously.

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist