We need hospitals, not graveyards
Someone has convinced the ‘Khadim-e-Aala’ that the city of Lahore has a serious crisis of burying their dead. These days he is seen inaugurating graveyards with great pomp and show while the life-saving hospitals are in total disarray. There is a famous saying that; a doctor can afford to bury his mistakes, while a lawyer can continue to defend his mistakes but an engineer has to live with his mistakes. The real challenge is in building right not burying or defending as has been the case in the last thirty years in the country.
When I saw the photograph of the Chief Minister taking a round of ‘Shehar-e-khamoshan’ (City of the dead) on a Golf mobile I was reminded of the once functional hospitals of the country. It was somewhere around the year 1961 or 1962, my brother was admitted in the Mayo Hospital for an operation of tonsillitis. We had a room in the AVH section (Albert Victor Hospital). The surgery was next day, my father the busy entrepreneur left us in the room to attend to his business. In those days there was no in-room entertainment like TV or music so we decided to go outside and play marbles. When we were done we could not get back in. Outsiders could only enter during visiting hours. Despite our insistence that we were patient and his attendant we had to wait outside till my father came back and took us in after talking to the Registrar. Rules were strictly followed one could not pay his way through. The city of Lahore had great hospitals and doctors. From cradle to grave it was all covered. Mian Sahib the largest graveyard of the metropolis continues to accommodate its dead till today but what went wrong with our hospitals where lives were saved not lost. On June 02, 1953 Col. Sami the famous Gynecologist of his times brought me into this world at Lady Wallington Hospital which is situated across the road from Minar-e-Pakistan which is now called ‘Azadi Chowk’. At the age of ten I lay bleeding with a serious head injury outside the gate of Mayo Hospital. A staffer of the daily Pakistan Times carried me to the emergency room of the hospital. Dr. Riaz Qadeer operated on me and my life was saved. My father always insisted on going to this great hospital. As an upright individual struggling in a sea of corruption he had several heart attacks, each time he was admitted there and came back alive and rejuvenated with minimum impact on his pocket. Finally on September 02, 1991 he left this world for his heavenly abode in the ICU of this great institution. Dr. Zubair and his team did their best to save his life but his time was over.
Today both health and education are the most neglected sectors of the country and have become big business. Public sector hospitals and schools are in disarray as there is serious conflict of interest. Now only the poor and down trodden segments of the society go to these hospitals to die or to these schools to remain illiterate. People in power are capitalizing on the plight of the masses. It seems the next round will be the corporatization of Graveyards to cover it all from cradle to graveyard and make money.
I had the opportunity of visiting a cemetery in Milan the commercial capital of Italy. It is called ‘Cemetery Monumentally’ (Monumental cemetery). The rich and powerful of the city lay buried here. Each grave is a monument to itself and shows the power of wealth even in death. It reminded me of Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi’s verse that, “Here the shrines are higher than the dwellings of the living”.
It is all about priorities. While we were developing a framework for a ‘Welfare State’ we were told that such states are mostly bankrupt which is not true. When Sweden decided to become a welfare state its per capita income was lower than Pakistan’s today. Most European countries are ‘welfare states’ and so is Singapore an island state with no natural resources. Even the drinking water comes from Malaysia yet its GDP is manifold higher than ours. Lee Kuon Yew their leader invested on human capital which then generated wealth for everyone to share. China did the same and is now the second largest economy of the world.
I clearly remember a cold winter night in 1971 while we were rushing home after studying for exams. We were riding on an old beat up scooter with no lights. While passing through Miani Sahib on Bahawalpur Road we were hit by some object coming through the graves. It was like the proverbial bolt from the blue. We lost balance and fell down, on recovery while still in shock we discovered that it was a bicycle rider who had rammed into us. My first reaction was; ‘where is your light’? He answered ‘Sir you are also without it’, so we were even and left quietly. Unfortunately for Pakistan it is a similar situation, blind leading the blind in the surrounding darkness of the dead. Our children will have to endure all this unless we restore the light of knowledge and health, which focuses on the living not the dead.
