How Our Paltry Systems Fail The Children Of The Poor

“They are in heaven now

They were as pure as the prophets

Who came with your message

Why did you send these little souls

Only to call them back again?

Were they too precious

For you to part with?

Or did they also have a message

That they delivered

As they themselves were just delivered?

Yes, they delivered your message

Only too clearly

But not loud enough to reach

The determinedly deaf

Maybe the flames got in the way

Maybe their games got in the way

And down here

They will have their way

With freshly pressed handkerchiefs

Wiping a tear away.”

(Ashraf Jehangir Qazi)

In a country where a meagre 0.8% of the federal budget is allocated to health, expecting the sector to function even at a bare minimum is an ambitious assumption

In such a dire state of underfunding and relegation, for things to not go wrong is no less than a miracle itself. With a lack of funds, mismanagement, rampant corruption, and systemic deficiencies marring services and mechanisms at our public health facilities, the expected default mode is a state of widespread indifference, under-performance, and under-delivery

Chronic underspending on healthcare is the major cause of the lack of quality services and secure safety standards in state-run hospitals, while conditions cannot be expected to improve unless we begin to make health a national priority

One of the reasons that our public sector healthcare and education have never been prioritised in policymaking and are in such a shameful state of shambles is that the rich and the ruling classes would never themselves, or ever have their children, use these government facilities

International or private schools suffice for their children’s education, and treatments abroad for themselves and their loved ones are privileges that keep the elites away and sheltered from the ravaging realities of how the common man’s children learn and heal in the country

Children Of A Lesser God: Some Scattered Thoughts On The Silenced Children Of Pakistan

The only surest way to upgrade standards and efficiency at our public hospitals is to devise laws that make it mandatory for the power elites, including the bureaucracy, to receive their treatments at government hospitals

Which is why the only surest way to upgrade standards and efficiency at our public hospitals is to devise laws that make it mandatory for the power elites, including the bureaucracy, to receive their treatments at government hospitals. Otherwise, the lives of the masses alone are not worthy enough to divert more finances and forethought towards the health and education sectors. But who will make such laws?

Undoubtedly, in every sphere of life, it is the progeny of the poor that is doubly disadvantaged; firstly, by devastating destitution and secondly, as the marginalised minority that children are, rendered least significant to define our public discourse or policymaking

I always believe that child rights and animal rights encounter the same inherent set of challenges: both children and animals cannot speak up for themselves; both do not even have an understanding or awareness of their rights or even existence; both are helplessly dependent on human adults for survival, sustenance, and succour

The PIMS Inferno

In a most distressing incident this Wednesday morning, 14 infants asphyxiated to death, many of them charred, in a fire that broke out in the nursery of the Mother and Child Health Ward at Islamabad’s PIMS Hospital, the biggest and most renowned government hospital in the federal capital. The hospital serves patients from KP, Balochistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan, besides catering to masses in the capital city.

With a customary inquiry committee having been formed to look into the incident, conventional condolences offered, and financial compensation announced, the authorities’ task is done. With no intentions to learn any lessons to avert in the future what was not a mishap but an expected outcome of criminal negligence of such huge proportions, the case will be shelved and forgotten in a few weeks’ time.

Multiple explanations have surfaced, so far, for the ving an air-conditioning unit or its compressor. Whatever the ted, what followed in terms of response and rescue operations at PIMS on Wednesday morning was total chaos

Mohsan Shabbir On Why Cloud Data Systems Matter For Pakistan’s Digital Growth

Eyewitnesses and parents recount how all emergency exits were locked or restricted, and rescue efforts were delayed, while there was a near-total absence of proper evacuation protocols or functional fire-safety equipment, with the fire point out of water and broken fire hoses missing their couplings

Some affected parents said they waited for hours for help to arrive, while official statements are adamant fire tenders arrived within minutes after receiving the emergency call. Media accounts from those who later visited the site speak of a security staff that hindered the rescue operation due to their absence from duty

The PIMS inferno is a damning indictment of the state of the biggest public hospital in the country’s capital and of our government hospitals in general. Without fire safety measures in place, precautionary preparedness compromised, and emergency escapes inaccessible in a medical facility that people visit to deal with their health emergencies, one shudders to think what the situation must be like in smaller cities, districts, and villages.

Instead of improving security measures in the face of threats of newborns being stolen from nurseries, PIMS authorities locked emergency exit gates, left them unmanned, and threw the keys in some deep well

Adding insult to the parents’ irredeemable injury was the inexcusable attitude of authorities in what followed immediately. Not wanting to disturb the semblance of order even in the face of a tragic disorderliness of this scale, the parents, even before they had time to register what had just happened, after being handed over their babies’ remains, were told to leave, pushed away, and shoved

In an attempt to hush the incident and prevent affected families from ‘creating scenes’ or talking to the media, those who had been exposed to such a traumatising tragedy hours ago were heartlessly ousted

A History of Neglect

The PIMS management, on occasions in the not-so-distant past, was told to “put their house in order.” In June 2023, four patients died at PIMS due to non-functional air conditioning. In June 2024, a protest was held by young doctors during a visit by the adviser to the federal ombudsperson to PIMS, who alleged mismanagement at the hospital as well as a deficiency of facilities, even in the ICU.

Cloud Data Systems Are Becoming The Backbone Of Pakistan’s Digital Economy

On Friday, the health minister vowed that “no one will be spared,” adding that no one intends to spare or save anyone and that the PIMS tragedy cannot be an “episode lasting merely a few days,” while calling for accountability and health reforms. Such statements make it quite clear that only the subordinates and inferiors, like the hospital staff in the ward that escaped the scene to save their own lives, will fall under the investigators’ axe.

The PIMS inferno is not the first incident of children killed or injured in a hospital fire in the country. In June 2024, eleven infants died in the paediatric medicine ward of the Sahiwal Teaching Hospital due to a short circuit in the air conditioning system. Two months ago, a fire broke out in the ICU at Karachi’s National Institute of Child Health. In May 2023, a newborn died while another suffered burns after a fire erupted in the paediatric nursery of Lahore’s Children’s Hospital.

In May 2021, fifteen children were affected at Sialkot’s Govt Sardar Begum Teaching Hospital when one of its rooms caught fire. In January 2020, a newborn girl died when an incubator caught fire at Karachi’s National Institute of Child Health, the largest children’s hospital in Sindh. In June 2012, four newborns died and 17 received burn injuries when a fire erupted in Lahore’s Services Hospital.

The PIMS tragedy is also the saddest, most stark reminder of the larger picture of how little we invest in the children of our country, especially in those whose parents can only afford to access public health facilities and for whom the law is usually out of reach. Are those born into poverty not the children of this country, the future of this land, to be so dispensable as to be starved, burnt, run-over, raped, or racked to death every day?

Every new day brings a more horrifying story of another child abducted, violated, victimised, strangled, burnt, or dumped. Every day it is the same story repeated with different victims and differing details. For how long will justice and our paltry systems continue to fail Pakistan’s progeny of poverty?

How A VR Healthcare Expert Is Using Gaming Technology To Build Clinical Training Systems In Pakistan
Share: