Huma Wasim
In October this year, the death of legendary cricketer Wasim Akram’s young wife, Huma shocked many around the world. What started as a minor ailment of tooth fungus, took Huma eventually to a ventilator and she lost her battle with death to convoluted bureaucracy and even intentional malevolence. A traumatized Wasim revealed to the press later that two of the best hospitals of Lahore had failed to diagnose her wife’s disease and in a bid to prolong her treatment, ended up extorting a total of $200,000 from Wasim.
Only a few weeks later, another tragedy took place. The news of three year girl Imanae Malik dying at one of the best hospitals in Lahore due to negligence has initiated a serious debate into what needs to be sorted out in Pakistan’s healthcare. Imanae Malik was brought to Doctor’s Hospital during the Eid holidays with minor burns. She was injected with anaesthesia in doses unsuitable to her age and died within minutes. According to Imanae’s father Aqeel Malik, precious time was wasted by the hospital staff which kept saying that Imanae was asleep even after he failed to detect the child’s heartbeat. Children and adults like Imanae and Huma die everyday at the hands of medical practitioners and many don’t even make it to the news as they are illiterate, poor and accept it as their fate.
Imanae Malik
On one hand, Pakistani doctors are considered to be one of the most capable ones in the world. Hospitals like Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, Sindh Institute of Urology, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Jinnah Post Medical Centre, Aga Khan Hospital and the Civil Hospital Karachi to name a few, are being run by some of the finest doctors. The Consultant doctors in Public Hospitals are specially skillful because firstly they handle the most difficult cases coming from the most backward areas on a daily basis, and secondly, they usually have a very successful private practice which allows them to earn a very handsome amount of money and therefore they approach their profession unburdened by the need to make money.
On the other hand, sickening cases of neglect make it to news every now and then. A cat eating a newborn baby in a gynae ward of a public hospital in Karachi several years ago, a private hospital in Lahore sealed for running a kidney smuggling racket and an unqualified neurosurgeon at a hospital are some examples that send shivers down one’s spine. In a country where a population of 10,000 has access to only 8 qualified physicians and 0.9 pharmacists, there is an immense burden on the available staff and a tremendous potential for quacks to flourish. In a situation like this, when established hospitals for the affluent start showing signs of criminal neglect, it shows that conditions are appalling at large for the majority of common people.
The uproar in the Imanae and Huma Wasim cases has led to suspension of the concerned doctors and staff. It has also led to calls for strict accountability of health practitioners. However a deeper probe may reveal that the issue at hand has less to do with accountability, and more to do with a radical change in the way health services are provided in Pakistan.
It is naivety to assume that the government will be able to reform the health sector of evils completely. There is only a limit to which legislation can bring in change. Law can ensure a hospital verifies the qualifications of doctors before hiring them, it can ensure that adequate training has been given to paramedical health staff for treating patients. It can ensure that all patients, irrespective of their financial status, are entitled to finest treatment. It can specify the maximum working hours and minimum salaries for the overworked and underpaid health sector. But that is about it.
Laws do not bring a caring smile on the face of a medical practitioner, neither will they bring humility and patience. They will certainly not guarantee a genuine interest by the health professional in the patient’s condition. The essence to reform lies in the intent with which medical practitioners approach work.
To the Health Practitioner
Medicine is the quintessential example of a profession that is there to serve the other. Examples of the healthy becoming terminally ill or dying due to negligence at a health facility are a stark manifestation that the profession is being used as a tool to TAKE rather than GIVE.
Unless medical practitioners realise that their task has phenomenal consequences, things will not change. The intent to serve the patient, the intent to save lives is the core of a health professional’s work. The patient is the customer. He is the reason why a medical practitioner gets his bread and butter.
The base of transformation lies at the level of intent.
A benevolent intent to serve sees each patient, each case as an opportunity to learn and grow professionally. Each case is new. Each case is phenomenally significant. Each case besets you with a chance to do what is correct rather than what seems easy. Each case that makes you do the correct, steps you up on the level of success and excellence. Each of these appropriate steps secures you trust, equips you with courage and gives you Power.
Each case is a chance to save the entire mankind.
References:
- http://www.emro.who.int/emrinfo/index.asp?Ctry=pak#HealthStatus
- http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/cricket/health+ministry+suspends+doctors+in+huma+akram+case
- www.imanae.co.uk
Tags: Benevolent Intent, Care and Growth, Huma Wasim, Imanae Malik, medical practitioners, Pakistan's Health Sector, Pakistani doctors
