No respect for the living or dead in Sindh

Bodies shifted to hospitals in animal transporting vans, donkey carts

SUKKUR: The government may claim to have provided better health and education facilities to the people but billions of rupees are allocated every year for the purchase of medicine, equipment and ambulances without any visible effect. For example, ambulances are seldom used for transporting patients or the dead to hospitals, forcing people to take matters into their own hands.

Last Sunday, a family of four lost their lives in a road accident on the Sukkur-Shikarpur Road near Deha village. After waiting for an ambulance to transport the bodies to Civil Hospital, Sukkur, people hired a pickup van, which is normally used to transport animals, to shift the bodies to the hospital. There are many basic health units and rural health centres in the surrounding areas but no ambulance was available to shift the bodies.



When the van carrying the four bodies reached near the bus terminal in Sukkur, the police stopped it and when the people told them what had happened, the policemen called ambulances of a charity organisation to shift the bodies to the hospital.

This incident was witnessed by a number of people and photographs were taken by a member of the media, educating people on the government's apathy to the welfare of its citizens. Nevertheless, such incidents are commonplace in Sindh and go unnoticed by the media and government.

A recent bomb blast at the Shikarpur Imambargah claimed many lives but there were only two ambulances available to transport the injured people to the hospital. Most of the injured were shifted to hospitals in rickshaws or donkey carts and, resultantly, many died on the way.

Jamal Din Jatoi, a close relative of the ill-fated family whose members died last Sunday, confirmed to The Express Tribune that they hired a van to shift the bodies to Sukkuras no ambulance was available. The police stopped them near the bus terminal and called ambulances to shift the bodies, he added. When contacted, Edhi Foundation officials said that as soon as they received the call about an accident on the Sukkur-Shikarpur Road, they rushed to the scene but the bodies had already been taken to the hospital by that time.

The Sindh government may have established rural health centres and basic units and posted doctors and paramedics but without accountability and supervision, many doctors and paramedics shirk their duties and leave the people to suffer.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 16^th, 2016.