No, CM saab, the smell of mismanagement
Anyone looking for conspiracies lurking anywhere around should call Shahbaz Sharif. He will reach the spot, expand his nostrils and sniff right, left, back and forth and, rest assured, he will locate the conspiracy even if it lies hidden in the bowels of the of the earth, the darkest depths of the sea or anywhere near the ozone layer.
Recently, Shahbaz has made two award winning discoveries. Don’t blame me, he says, for hundreds of deaths during the dengue epidemic in Punjab and the subsequent more than five score mortalities caused by the contaminated Isotab. Both health disasters were in fact the outcome of a deep conspiracy against Punjab and its hard working chief minister.
His opponents might reject the claim on grounds of his inability to produce proofs. What is the need for proofs, he can say? Effroze Chemical Industries which produced the deadly Isotab is situated in Karachi, the capital of Sindh. Isn’t this a sufficient clue to the riddle? Can anyone in his senses doubt that Zardari is behind the deaths of all these heart patients?
His tormentors might accuse him of fanning parochialism and promoting misunderstanding between the provinces. But Shahbaz doesn’t care. He is convinced of there being a conspiracy and he has the courage of conviction which forces him to speak out the truth.
I have enemies, he contends. The bravery of a man in Punjab is measured by the number of enemies he has. As if Zardari, Gilani, Latif Khosa were not enough, the Chaudhrys of Gujrat have joined the battle with their tokas and kulharis to make mincemeat of him. “Those in Islamabad needed dead bodies in Lahore,” he is reported to have told NNI as quoted by the daily Express Lahore.
Suddenly, it has dawned upon Shahbaz that the dengue disaster which is widely understood to be the outcome of his neglect to give proper time to the health ministry was in fact another conspiracy hatched against Punjab and its Khadim-e-Aala by wily Zardari.
According to SANA News, Shahbaz said that “a most important person in Islamabad was involved in spreading dengue in Lahore. The patrons of the (Punjab Assembly’s) opposition leaders sitting in Islamabad wanted large scale destruction in Punjab so that people may drag Shahbaz Sharif on the streets.”
On Wednesday, Shahbaz sent home ten top doctors and officials from Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital. The charge was that they had failed to make use of thousands of costly injections. We should be ready to hear one day that this was in fact an American conspiracy as the injections were produced by an American firm.
The conspiracy theory might satisfy some of the die hard PML(N) fans. It cannot, however, stop the recurrence of the type of human tragedies that have already taken toll of hundreds of lives in Punjab. Whatever happened was the direct outcome of Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s exceptionally shoddy management of the health ministry. With Shahbaz wearing 18 ministerial crowns on his head, he has little time to prepare a comprehensive health policy for the most populous province of the country. The Health Ministry has been left at the mercy of to visionless officials.
Anyone can easily buy medicines that can only be sold on a doctor’s prescription. Most pharmaceutical store owners lack the qualifications required under the law. Spurious drugs and outdated medicines continue to be sold all over the province. Unsuspecting patients from rural areas are at the mercy of medical stores owners who act as self appointed doctors.
There is no machinery for taking preventive measures to block the spread of epidemics. The chemicals needed to destroy the dengue mosquitoes were not available when people started falling ill. Emergency imports were made only after the number of deaths reached alarming proportions. Had the chemicals been acquired on time and sprayed weeks before, the disease would not have gone out of control. There was no one to pay total attention to the health ministry.
The provincial health department requires a full time minister. What it has got is Shahbaz Sharif who has chosen to look after 17 other ministries also. Only after his negligence has caused scores of deaths does Shahbaz spring into action. In almost a knee jerk reaction, he looks for a scapegoat, say a doctor, an administrator or a drug producer. Without holding proper enquiry, the person is suspended, transferred, dismissed or arrested. In most cases, he is rehabilitated when the doctors go on strike or the courts declare him to be innocent.
What was discovered on Wednesday at Jinnah Hospital was just a tip of the iceberg which has accumulated over years of neglect by the health ministry. It was found that 1,900 Omniscan injections, each costing the public exchequer Rs 1,735, stored in the hospital had expired in April 2011. This led to the suspension of 10 senior doctors and administrators. Nobody knows how many injections of the type are being sold all over the province to unsuspecting patients.
The writer is a former academic and a political analyst.