Karachi, Feb 26: A team of doctors, and paramedics, led by Dr Sara S. Khan, Director, Medical Aid Foundation, Karachi attended 540 poor patients at the Taluka Hospital, Umerkot, on Friday and Saturday and provided them with necessary medicines. Of these, seven women were suspected of suffering from breast cancer. They will undergo mammography at Rahatkada, the hospice for cancer patients in Karachi, run by the Medical Aid Foundation. Three of them, who were much below subsistence level, were given bus fare for themselves and their escorts.
The programme for examining poor patients as Shadipali, a village near Mirpurkhas, had to be shelved because of the loss of four hours on Friday at Umerkot, due to apathetic attitude on the part of the local administration. The deputy commissioner of Umerkot had been duly informed about the arrival of the medical team from Karachi and he had promised to make necessary arrangements at the Taluka Hospital. When the team reached Umerkot, they were shocked to find that the DC was away from Umerkot and the ADM was away, on two day’s leave, while the SDM pleaded that the DC had not informed of the actual day of arrival. The local doctors, who were supposed to provide back-up support, were unaware of the arrival of the team. However, announcements from local mosques and on the streets by the three volunteers accompanying the team in the evening brought what seemed to be an unending stream of patients, who were treated on Saturday.
The Taluka Hospital at Umerkot wore a picture of negligence and callousness. A middle aged man, suffering from snake bite, was writhing in pain, while his attendant was trying his best to alleviate his suffering. A woman who was sufferings from an undiagnosed disease (a local doctor claimed she was a victim of malaria) was lying unattended for two days. The worst case was of a man in his twenties who had fallen from a tractor four days ago and was not being treated. When this writer inquired from the doctor on duty at the hospital if the patient had been X-rayed, the medical practitioner said the X-ray machine had been ‘non-functioning’ to use his own words, for the last five months. The man was too poor to pay for an X-ray at a private X-ray unit in town. A volunteer paid the fee and the patient was sent to the X-ray unit on a donkey cart because the ambulance, which seemed to be of a recent model, was hospitable.
In Umerkot, the medical team distributed 180 food packets consisting of rice, lentils, powdered milk, tea and biscuits among poor people before leaving for Karachi. This part of the help came from Mrs. Hayat Gazazz, wife of the Consul General of Saudi Arabia. |
