July 18, 2010

At the Cost of the Underprivileged

I was merely surfing through The True Perspective when I clicked this in the Latest News section. It is a heart wrenching ordeal of a poor Chinioti family which has lost its daughter because the doctors, who were supposed to treat her and make her better, ended up doing the exact opposite. It is also quite poignant to note that the helpless family accepted their defeat and went home, only to suffer in silence because those who should’ve cared never did; those who should’ve helped, never came.

This is our plight; Pakistan’s plight. Our priorities have changed and we are so much more interested in pointless things. Our human nature has been distorted to epic proportions. The “Insaniat” inside us is quite dead. But that is just one aspect of this whole sordid affair. The lack of accountability is the second part of it. Of late, it seems as if the doctors have lost their minds. Doctors end up murdering people who go to them for curing their physical pain. Remember Immane Malik? Or just tune into any Pakistani news channel and you will find out that a doctor (Dr. Jabbar) has been arrested for raping and then trying to murder a nurse. And now this.

The mere fact that those who perpetrate such crimes are never brought to justice speaks volumes about the credibility of the justice system. It appears you have to be a big shot now, to even get an iota of recognition by the justice system. This Chinioti family is a prime example. They have been forced to suffer in silence because nobody cared. They will spend the rest of their lives knowing that they live in a society which never stepped up to share their grief. The cognizance of the situation by the Prime Minister was welcome. But he is equally responsible for this murder. The Rs. 500,000 he specified for the little girl were lost in the bureaucratic red tape. His bureaucracy. His administration, his system.

This is the real picture. This is the society as it is. This is how the powerful operate, or rather don’t operate at all. Just like the media has taken up the issue of the fake degrees of the legislators, it should start a campaign to get the degrees of the doctors operative within this country verified. It scares me to think what’ll happen if one of the people dear to me falls ill one day and has to go to the doctors in this country.

The people at the helm of affairs need to take stock of the situation and stem the rot. What the Chinioti family has lost can never be returned, but at least a sense of solidarity can be shown to them. The doctors responsible for the neglect should be brought to justice and an example should be made out of them so that doctors think twice before even prescribing disprin to the people. Once again, this is a call to you, the people who can make the change possible, to wake up and do your bit so that another family, anywhere in Pakistan, never has to go through the ordeal that Chinioti family has been forced to go through. Let this family's pain never be forgotten.