Soft target

Be it hospitals or any other government department, everybody seems to be running on hamster wheel

With elections around the corner, the game of politics is on a high once again with every political figure, no matter how miniscule, having a hard time not to drool over soft targets. What better a target than doctors?

A few days ago, a young doctor working in the paediatrics department of Rawalpindi’s Benazir Bhutto Hospital was terminated on charges of “misconduct”. The same day a video surfaced on social media in which the same doctor could be seen and heard explaining to an elderly woman about the lack of vacant ventilators in the hospital as the reason why her patient could not get one.

Ventilator shortage in government hospitals is a well-versed reality at least amongst those working there. Problem arises when the unaware public is made to face this reality when their patient does not land on the ventilation machine.

Health authorities and administrative officials, to their convenience, shifted the momentum in search of the sacrificial lamb. Who better than the duty doctor? Historically, every administrative slip-up in hospital setups always ends with a doctor being sent home.

Doctors and nursing staff, particularly of public sector hospitals, work under deplorable conditions. Basic functioning necessities such as oxygen ports are unavailable to deliver oxygen directly to patients. Instead they are made to relive the pre-partition days where ward boys would carry oxygen cylinders, fill them with oxygen and then bring the cylinders back to patients. The unavailability of life saving equipment, ventilators, proper heating and cooling system and basic medicines, dirty linen and substandard cleanliness, and less beds in proportion to the patient population is simply covered up by holding doctors accountable and starting their public trial while the administrative and governmental departments are nowhere to be seen.

If there is a shortage of ventilators or other life-saving equipment, no problem, just grab the doctor by the neck and hold him answerable. If the hospital pharmacy lacks the required drugs, it is much easier to terminate the prescribing doctor than the provision of medications. If there are two patients on one bed due to less provision of beds, then a doctor must be sacrificed to show the public that the evil has been chopped off. Take them to court, terminate them, suspend them, throw an inquiry, the piñata treatment is the ‘dish of the day’ for the medical community.

Over the years there have been multiple incidents, recorded on camera as well, in which office bearers can be seen shouting at senior doctors and professors in front of patients and their attendants. This political manoeuvring plays to public sentiments, wins the heart of the public and strengthens the vote bank.

The community of young doctors has once again taken to streets to protest their terminated white coat comrade. These coerced protests and subsequent OPD closures have weakened the medical messiah’s image and led to the downfall of the medical fraternity. Today, the public perception is that doctors are money-minting machines having no regard for human life whatsoever.

The cornered doctors are trapped in a whirlpool of uncertainty. They have no proper representation to overturn or challenge politically motivated decisions against them and so the only exercisable option left for them is to hang their white coats and refuse medical care which again gives the society a beastly impression about them.

About two years ago, I wrote an article (https://shorturl.at/sxzH8) on how Rawalpindi’s biggest tertiary care public hospital was giving off fumes of the stone-age era. Instead of correcting the wrongs and elevating standards of healthcare as I highlighted, local officials slammed me with an explanation letter. It later came to my knowledge that a response letter from the hospital was sent back to the provincial health department stating an “all is well” report.

Be it hospitals or any other government department, everybody seems to be running on a hamster wheel. The “yes boss” and “all is well” strategy promises job security and better promotional likelihood. So why truly care about any healthcare progress or reform? Let’s continue the piñata treatment of our doctors. Our health sector can wait.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2023.

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