Alarming
Former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry exhausted the limits of suo motu powers, leading even a number of eminent jurists to protest. Soon after Chaudhry’s retirement a three-member Supreme Court bench recommended a review of the top court’s suo motu powers “to correct the mistakes made while taking suo motu notices.” A perception was created that the apex court would now go to the extreme of totally neglecting cases without formal prompting from a supplicant. Happily this has not taken place.
On Tuesday a three member bench of the Supreme Court took notice of the reports in the media regarding children’s deaths from curable diseases. The issue continues to remain neglected because the rulers are fully focused on high visibility projects that can fetch them votes in the next elections and have little time for anything else. As a judge observed, terrorism kills two per cent while diseases take toll of 98 percent.
The situation regarding children dying from preventable diseases is alarming. Despite the existence of low-cost and effective interventions for childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea, the ailments remain two of the leading killers of young children. Early this month a report presented in the Sindh Assembly showed as many as 209 children having died of measles in the province in 2012. Insufficient funds provided for health in national and provincial budgets is one major cause behind the tragic situation, lack of vigilance on the part of the government being another. Children’s wards in government hospitals are short of ventilators all over the country, contributing in a big way to the high mortality rate. Then there is negligence or pilferage on the part of the government staff which leads to medicine shortages. Costly vaccines donated by foreign agencies are frequently sold in market as pointed out by the apex court. In cases weak vaccine management system makes the vaccine ineffective.
The court has called the four DGs health, federal secretary health and chairman drug regulatory authority. While this may help, what is required is permanent oversight by committees comprising individuals from civil society.