Civil Hospital doctors feel “over-burdened”
The City News recently reported that as per recent government orders all rape cases in Karachi would be directed to the Civil Hospital’s medico-legal department whereas previously the Civil Hospital and Jinnah Hospital both shared the burden of handling rape and assault cases in Karachi. This was done because they wanted to centralize all cases under one jurisdiction (Civil falls under provincial government and Jinnah falls under federal government).
The drawbacks that were highlighted are summarised as follows:
a) The doctors at Civil Hospital were not consulted nor were they informed formally.
b) The Civil Hospital is already inundated with cases and has major resource constraints. They lack the necessary equipment and facilities to handle all the cases in Karachi and the already unreportedness of rape and assault will be adversely affected. Sometimes the doctors claim they have to pay out of their own pockets to help the victims.
c) Further exacerbated by the fact that victims find no relief in treatment where they have to be rushed and face a dearth of resources and plays havoc with their already maimed psyche.
This centralization of legal cases may make sense in light of coherence in legislative procedures but realities show otherwise. The most heinous crime in the city, the most traumatic experience for any human to go through, hundreds of cases in this enormous metropolis, dealt single-handedly by one hospital: is this fair?
A question comes to mind whether this move reflects the nominal number of cases that do get reported; are the rapes in this so underreported that the government feels that one hospital will be able to deal with the quantity all on its own?
I do not find anything abnormal about making a single unit in the metropolis to deal with a specific problem.
I hope many readers might be aware that CHK has got the only burns unit for the whole of the city (in public centre).
It is a common practise in various health care systems throughout the world especially in Britain, not all the facilities are available in a single hospital, for most of the specialities there are regional centres which are fully equipped & have adequate number of trained staff & mechanisms for that speciality.
Most of the times the ‘cachment areas’ of these regional centres is huge.
I do not know what were the motives of our higher ups in making CHK a single unit to deal with rape victims throughout the city.
If the reasons were ‘clinical’, then I do agree with the author that they should have taken the doctors & administration of CHK into confidence before this was implememnted.
Further, if you do not provide adequate facilites & manpower, then it does not matter that you make one two or three centres across the city as they are not going to benefit the people of Karachi.
Unfortunately, health & education are the areas which have been constantly neglected by all the governments.
Why I can’t see my comments here?
Could you please highlight the positives?
What’s the Doctor Vs Patients ratio for such cases? How many cases are being reported each week/month? Any data you could provide would be helpful for the readers. Thank you.
Be creative and find out how you can handle these cases without burdening the tax payer. If every one in there can concentrate on work and can give 110% of there time there would not be a problem.Before even being implemented start AGITATION? Like Crook Justice is doing,,,Bring people on ROAD, show your Strength and u will win the Case?
(Civil falls under provincial government and Jinnah falls under provincial government).
**Typo**
I’m planning to send this link to Human Rights Association.
PS. KMB has attacked by a spammer.
@ Neena
What it has do do with HUMAN RIGHT Association.
PUT SOME SPAM FILTERS and that will take care of it or tell your web master.
My comments on this post are witheld for ‘authors approval’.
have been waiting for 6 hrs for approval.
red tape or something?
Tamed,
They probably had external links, sometimes those are held up, have patience, I’m sure Bayl will look at it whenever soon. [:)]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjHgtanrCzs
Karachi is the tax hub of Pakistan. I have heard that Karachi alone pays 40% of the total tax revenue.
Regular citizen of this nation are burdened by enormous taxes, direct as well as indirect. EVERYTHING is taxed except seawater and air in this country. Even the poorest pay at least 5000-10000 rs to the national exchequer through indirect taxes each year.
Yet the successive governments have failed to provide even basic facilities to these poor masses.
Shame on all our governments and all our leaders.
@Zainub,
Many thanks,
but believe me I don’t have any ‘external links’ ;)
Tamed~.
nobody responded to my suggestion of an alternate blog for the withheld comments of KMB(MB)……the rope is getting tighter or the lemon drier over here….lol