Being a chronic cardiac patient, I get severe pneumonia often which usually takes me to one of the largest private health facility in the largest city of Pakistan. I have been to the same hospital three times in the past five years so I understand how things operate there. But this time, things looked a lot more disturbing. This forced me to think that if such are the conditions in the best private hospital, then how bad they could be in the public sector hospitals.
I got ‘shifa‘ (health) in the same private hospital so I do not want to sound like a thankless soul. They have been fairly nice, cooperative, caring and professionals to help me out of my suffering but at the same time I noticed incidents of negligence that have left me disturbed.
For example, I saw an old lady-patient slipping and falling to the ground through the hands of physiotherapists. I saw a highly critical dengue-fever patient waiting to be taken to ICU for 5 painstakingly long hours. I also witnessed doctors mistreating an old lady who was completely devastated with her husband’s sickness after losing her 20 year old son few months back. Let’s get to the detail of all these incidents separately so this piece becomes a eye-witness account.
The old lady got floored by the mistake of a trained and stern-looking doctor, not by any untrained nursing staff. The old lady must have been at least 70 years old. She was on the dialysis and could neither see or hear properly. Once she got better after going through dialysis, the physiotherapist left her grounded during physiotherapy session. It was an awful feeling for the family as for all those who saw it. It is a pity that after paying whatever they ask for, a patient gets such poor treatment by hospital staff.
Similarly another case of maltreatment happened in front of my eyes. A patient hailing from NWFP who needed emergency care after a horrible night of profuse bleeding due to dengue fever was delayed by few hours because there was no one in the staff willing to take him there. The routine shift of 8 hours was near its end and the staff kept waiting for their next shift to come and perform their duty otherwise they had to include that task in their sheet. It was painful to see nurses and staff going through their routine tasks gingerly and delaying shifting one critical patient just because they had other important chores to do. The patient’s family was not too comfortable with Urdu or English language so they were looking helplessly at the staff with tears in their eyes waiting for some divine help to arrive.
Another incident that brought tears in my and my sister’s eyes was when we saw a 60 year old lady running after a 30 year old lady doctor for the prescription so that the old lady could go outside and arrange for the medicine herself. The old lady did not know that it is hospital’s responsibility to arrange for any kind of medication but that ruthless doctor had other important tasks at hand and she didn’t bother to tell that poor lady that it is not a public hospital where one needs to run after doctors for prescriptions and medications. That old lady did not have enough money to wait for her husband’s complete treatment, did not have attendants to stay with her husband overnight. She also had lost her 20 year old son in an accident recently and didn’t have enough tears left in her eyes to shed over her husband.
I understand that these incidents may be exceptions and that most people, at this hospital at least, are treated much better. But even as exceptions, these incidents seem unacceptable.
All this happened at one of the most illustrious and respected hospitals in the country. One that is supposed to be as good as any in the world. It made me wonder what could happen to the poor patients in public hospitals like at Jinnah, Civil, Abbassi Shaheed hospital suffering from dengue fever, pneumonia, malaria, food poisoning and all sorts of terrible diseases amidst the careless, non-professional and stone-hearted staff when all this can happen in the topmost private sector hospital?
I think about it and first I thank my God I have been given enough to be able to afford a private hospital and secondly I pray that hopefully we would solve our major problems such as wardi (uniform), jamhooriat (democracy), and azaad adlia (independent judiciary) and look towards our other problems such as health, education, and poverty - problems that beset all Pakistanis everyday.
Mr. Alvi said: “But what is stopping our upper middle class and rich from getting involved. Why these classes are not willing to help out our ‘poor wretched masses’. What is our excuse.”
In Pakistan, it happens often that well intentioned professionals from the diaspora with something to offer go back only to find that in order to do something to help the “masses” such as starting a hospital or new industry, corruption and nepotism preclude their involvement. I’ve seen it first hand happen to many, and the end result is that they leave Pakistan with their capital, skills, business plan etc. and go back to the diaspora with a bitter aftertaste. This is of course, not an excuse, but a reality many are unwilling to accept.
healthcare seems to be a crapshoot no matter where you are in the world. while its obviously worse in pakistan than in developed countries, pakistanis would be surprised by some of things that go on in US hospitals. it basically comes down to skills and professionalism - these can be lacking anywhere.
Rituals versus Duty and Human Rights
Aitzaz Ahsan, a renowned lawyer and a PPP leader, who was badly manhandled by the police on 29.9.07 at the Constitutional Avenue during the protest rally of the lawyers was complaining in an interview on the TV about the treatment meted out to him by the doctors of the public hospital where he had gone for emergency treatment of the injuries inflicted upon him by the police. He said that he had to wait for an hour for any attendance by the doctor when he was informed that all doctors were busy with their ‘Taraawi’ prayers of Ramzan and would see him only after they are free from their prayers.
This recalled to me my own horrible experience with the doctors in ‘Taraawi. Years ago I was admitted in Mayo Hospital’s AVH (Private Block) for an operation during Ramzan. After the operation when I regained my conscious I had a bout of vomiting which caused opening of some stitches resulting in profuse bleeding. My family ran for search of medical help but none was available as all the staff of the hospital had gone to offer ‘Taraawi’ prayers. I had never seen death so near in my life. Everything became so unreal that I began to wonder whether I was among the dead or alive. Any how, after a long and hectic search a medical attendant came to hand when I had almost become unconscious due to extreme loss of blood. I could however hear my wife bursting in rage upon the attendant and heard her shouting when she saw a doctor also: “Why” she said, “they employ ‘namaazies’ in hospitals who cannot attend even a dying patient for a mere ritual like ‘taraawi’ and suggested that they should better employ only Christians and Sikhs in hospitals who do not have to attend to the rituals which may prevent them from attending to their duty even when the life of a human being hangs in balance.”
A question arises: Is it not the time to ponder seriously whether we should employ those in our public health services in whose code of life there is no place for a code of ethics essential for the kind of job, but only a schedule of rituals believed to have been prescribed for a slave-owning society of centuries ago when there were no hospitals and no patients at their mercy.
I recall my grandfather being hospitalized in Sheikh Zaid Hospital in Lahore in the late 80’s and that seemed like a pretty decent hospital in those days.
I also recall a private hospital visit around 2003 and I was pleasantly surprised to see the facilities.
But I think the issue is the deterioration of _any/every_ given institution in Pakistan, which directly follows from the corruption which directly follows from a ruling class which does not identify with the land it is raping and pillaging (depositing the spoils overseas) which directly follows from a serious case of identity crisis that Pakistani masses are a victim of.
Sorry, a mouthful, but individual comparisons between facilities which are presented as counter arguments to the dilapidated conditions of Pakistani _anything_ (not just hospitals) don’t help much because people (such as the orig. author of this article) pointing this out are not ‘out to get Pakistan’ or anything like this.
The truth is, and pardon my french, that We’re screwed! And we’re responsible for it because of our apathy or our tunnel vision so far; in any case we’re screwed and the first step in trying to come up with a recovery strategy is to admit that very fact.
Admit you have a problem! and admit that the problem is systemic.. and all the anecdotal evidence is just a series of pointers to the symptoms of that larger underlying problem.
On average, and in general (no pun intended) we’re on the road to ruin. Will we be able to recover? not if we keep treating the systemic problem as a random occurrence of so called negative events, disjointed and unconnected to each other and history itself.
We have a systemic problem, and attacking those who point this out under the guise of pseudo-patriotism is also part of the same larger systemic problem. And it’s not helping.
It is terribly saddening what Mr. Ahsan Ali describes in his post. I strongly feel that, in the end, things come down to the fundamental character of people of nations. Where people treat each other with more kindness and acceptance of callouness by public is low, things work better as a whole (in degress at least).
We should ask ourselves how we treat our fellow human beings in our society. What we give to them is, ultimately, what they give back to the society when there are riots such as the recent one after BB’s tragic assasination.
If there was immediate public reaction where letting 70 year old diabetic and nearly blind helpless women are allowed to fall down to the ground and remain there, the responsible staff would soon learn the price of unprofessionalism.
Sadly, that day is a long way off in our part of the world.
However I do think there is room for improvement when it comes to medical care in Pakistan. Specially the attitude of the staff and on the attitude of our people who think a nurse is just a better name of a street walker.
I have been living in US for the past 15 years. I have two kids who were born extremely premature (1 lbs and only 6months) and were in the best hospitals in the West (these are the leaders and beacon of US Health Care). Both my kids were in ICN (Intensive care Nursery) for four months. I my self was once hospitalized for surgery at a very famous hospital in US and in the world.
Although I have a great deal of respect for the workers (doctors and the nurses). They are doing god’s work.
However let me share a few experiences with you. Four months after my surgery I was informed by the hospital that during the procedure I might have been exposed to TB due to non-sterilized equipment and should get tested right away.
My son who was in the hospital was given over dose by the doctor which could have caused mental retardation. They were using jack hammer (for renovation.) on the floor right above the Intensive care for hospital where they had several preemies under care. And you could see that by the sound and vibrations the vitals for all the babies would go haywire.
I know a person who went for her surgery at one the largest hospitals in US and was asked to walk around the ward next day after her surgery. Despite her telling them that she feels drowsy and might fall (which did happen) they insisted.
Unless you get wheeled in from an ambulance to ER, it takes minimum of two hours before a doctor sees you in an ER.
But still I think they are doing god’s work there.
I wonder why Mr. Ali hasn’t used the hospital’s name directly. His article has enough not-so-subtle hints for people to guess which hospital he is talking about but I think if one wants to make valid criticism of an institution one should do so plainly. In my humble opinion, it’s the best way to effect change.