Can you imagine going to the hospital, preparing an overnight bag packed with the smallest set of clothes, excited and nervous to meet the baby you have been waiting to meet for 9 months, only to come back empty handed, begging for not even the body of your baby, but the ashes? This is the state of the mothers of 14 babies who died because of a blazing fire at PIMS in Islamabad.
At 6:38 on Wednesday morning, a fire broke out in the Mother and Child Hospital from a short circuit in an AC unit. It quickly caught on oxygen tanks and got more severe. It was allegedly reported as a fire emergency at 6:45 AM, with the emergency rescue team allegedly responding in a few minutes.
14 newborn babies were fatally burned and succumbed to their injuries, while one baby is said to be rescued by a family member.
Would any government official ever take their loved one, their spouse, their parents or their child to PIMS? Individuals are only forced to choose PIMS or government hospitals because of their low income levels. The conditions at any government hospitals are dismal and this is common knowledge. Ask any Pakistani and they come up with their own account of the ongoings and patient treatment at government hospitals. Everyone has their own experience of sanitation, employees and administration.
At this incident, many people shared accounts of how they were treated. Pakistanis express that in dire emergency they took their family to the emergency room and the lack of urgency at such institutions caused the loss of lives. They say, “they treated our loved ones like a casual patient.” There are many accounts of people rushing their family to hospital after hospital and learning that ventilators are not available, and even if they are, people treat the case casually because using those ventilators would require permission from higher authorities. Jumping from one hospital to another begging for a ventilator, sadly there are many stories of desperate people losing their own kin this way.
There is a trending video from a hospital neonatal ward in Sahiwal that shows many newborn babies sharing a single ventilator. Reports say that there are up to 185 babies in a hospital ward meant for 30 babies.
Citizens of Islamabad share accounts of PIMS hallways smelling pungent. One netizen shared that when they went to a popular hospital in Rawalpindi, a patient vomited blood in the hallway and the wardens were very lax when asked to clean.
Reports show that government officials visited the hospital after the tragedy. I wonder if the destruction covered the urine and blood stains on the walls. I wonder if they know that the numerous patients on stretchers in the hallways is a normal everyday sight and not due to an emergency situation. I wonder if they would accept their own loved ones being treated in cold hallways in a hospital in which the patients bring blankets to share. I wonder if they have ever begged the way the lower class unfortunate enough to be forced by circumstance to such places have begged with their loved ones dying in their arms to provide the care such institutions are built to provide. There is surety that they are not the 3 out 5 Pakistanis treated at a government hospital. That’s 59 percent of Pakistanis, of which they are definitely not included.
According to a survey on American website PubMed Central, “the hospitals of Lahore and Islamabad lacked mass casualty apparatus and cleanliness, and staff behaviour can be improved.
Poor accountability and a lack of financial and human resources are the main contributing factors to a hospital’s substandard performance and low patient satisfaction rates.”
But why would they have to beg when they can just pull some strings, when they know the right person to pay? What would employees who are provided with rent, cars, drivers, petrol fares know about the struggles of a desperate man? What would people who boast about “extra” 4 lac income know about being in the shoes of someone forced by sheer poor luck to visit the same government hospital under their administration?
The public is enraged because this institutional failure is a common experience in Pakistan. There is a viral video of Mustafa Kamal, then Karachi mayor, now Health Minister screaming at a distressed patient. He screams that it takes 20,000 rupees for one day at an ICU. These people also spend 20,000 rupees for dinner for one evening at a restaurant. We’ve all sat with officials who boast about their extra cash.
Pakistan ranks 136th least corrupt out of a total 180 countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Pakistan loses up to 6.5% of its GDP each year due to elite capture and corruption.
It is too little yet too much to demand the governing class be admitted into their own administered healthcare facility, but even spending 20,000 rupees for an ICU unit is a burden for their poor souls.
In other news read more about Initial Report On PIMS Fire To Be Presented in Seven Days, Tarar Says
Alas, this information of corruption and institutional failure has not only been public information but common public experience for decades in Pakistan, but what is a common man to do in Pakistan?
