| October 14, 2002 | Monday | Sha'aban 7, 1423 |
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Appendix surgery
Sterilization facilities
Payment of royalty to NWFP
Robbing bank costumer
City of hoardings
Lahori’s Notebook
JPMC house officers
Daylight saving time
Pakistan flag
Price of sovereignty
A matter for envy
Beggars in Karachi
Kashmir and Krishna Menon
I WOULD like to ask those women who are so vociferously demanding the bodies of the two terrorists, killed in Defence area of Karachi, the following questions:
1) Where were these militant women when good Muslims were being gunned down in the streets of Karachi during sectarian violence?
2) Did these women go to offer condolences and assistance to even one of those homes that were bereft of their loved ones in such a brutal and senseless manner?
3) Did these women, so capable of registering their protests in the media, register their protest in any way against the wrong being done to innocent people in the name of religion?
4) Did they challenge the assumptions that anyone who practises Islam slightly differently from another person can be branded a non-Muslim and killed?
5) Did they lament the loss to our society of so many good practising doctors who were mercilessly gunned down because they were from a particular sect or had sect-identifying names?
Charity and caring begin at home. We are sick of imported brands of ‘Islam’ that show no tolerance for a different way of practice or a different belief.
Before being so concerned about the burial rites of people who were here for the express purpose of spreading murder and mayhem, these women should learn from our own Edhi who has turned up to perform funeral rites of any person — Muslim, Hindu or Christian.
And instead of being so proud that they are the mothers of Jihadis, they should be ashamed of the fact that they did not teach their children to fight a Jihad against illiteracy and poverty in our country. Instead they taught them to hate and probably eliminate anything that was different from their own blinkered world view.
F. MOWJEE
Karachi
THIS is with reference to a letter ‘Appendix surgery’ (Oct 5). With a systematic review and analysis of results of investigation, many clinicians are of the view that the usefulness of any test in a particular disease or clinical situation depends upon satisfactory answers to the following question:
a) Is this tool (investigation) precise and available at a reasonable cost?
b) Can the pre-test probability be reasonably estimated?
c) Will the post-test probability change the therapeutic action?
The learned writer of letter has described the role of helical C.T. scanning in the diagnosis of appendicitis and has advocated this to be cost-effective. The helical C.T. scanning with thin contrast is considered to be a little superior to the clinical accuracy.
Saving a certain situation of diagnostic dilemmas most of the time careful history, clinical examination and, sometimes, repeat examination will sort out the problems of diagnosis in most cases of appendicitis.
Waiting for helical C.T. scanning with contrast and expert radiologist to interpret the result will cost the patient both in terms of trouble and clinical course of the disease.
The stress should be to improve the clinical methods of clinician and careful counselling of the patient before surgical intervention.
The frequent use of helical C.T. in diagnosis of appendicitis will result in the medical expanses without being really cost-effective and adding to increase the diagnostic accuracy.
(Reference Vancouver style) Systemic review and metanalysis of emergency Ultra Sonography for blunt abdominal trauma. D. Stengel et al Br. J. Surg. 2001; 88.7, 901-2.
DR GHULAM ASGHAR CHANNA, JPMC,
Karachi
ADMINISTRATIVE flaws in our institutions are too rampant to be explicitly pointed out. When these slip-ups become a matter of habit, they seep into our psyche and become a deep-rooted part of our social character. The irony of the situation accentuates when the flaws go against the raison d’etre of the institutions.
One such example is the state of affairs of our public sector hospitals. While a lot can be said about this, I would limit myself to describing the problem of inappropriate sterilization facilities for medical students in Civil Hospital of Karachi.
I am especially familiar with the inexplicable situation in the hospital where we are required to be observers during live operations, sometimes of an extremely critical nature.
Patients with infectious diseases are operated on in the presence of the students who do not have access to the sterilization chamber prior to entering the operation theatre, as the surgeons do.
Any accidental contact with a disease carrier, such as a drop of infectious blood, may cause the subject to have a serious medical condition.
Amid such a high risk, the need for proper sterilization before admission to the operation theatre is as necessary for students as for surgeons and doctors.
I would request the concerned authorities of the Civil Hospital and other ill-fated healthcare canters of the country to arrange for proper sterilization for students before getting near the patients being operated on for infectious diseases.
The Ministry of Health should also take a serious note of the problem.
SEHAR KAZMI
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the article by Mr Ahmed Faraz Khan who pleads that the NWFP is getting exorbitantly high share of profits (Sept 24).
In this respect, I would like to point out that a sum of Rs290 billion is still to be paid to the NWFP as the share has been fixed at Rs6 billion according to the author.
In fact the payment is due in accordance with the Constitution and formula worked out at the highest level.
Over and above, Tarbela Dam, besides other adversities, has innumerable effects on agriculture sector of the province. The people of the NWFP have been opposing tooth and nail the construction of Kalabagh dam and will continue to do so as Tarbela Dam has led to a lot of sufferings to the agriculture sector in the province. With the construction of Kalabagh dam, the NWFP will face a further curtailment of the agricultural land with no other benefit except for the water storage, meant in fact for Punjab.
Whereas the economy of the NWFP is under strain, never ever has the federal government come out with plans to develop the industrial sector and commercial institutions.
Though a part of the country, the province has never been provided with any relief. The Tarbela royalty was long agreed to but it is the effects of wrong policies of the previous government which had accepted highest rates to be paid to the IPPs, mostly on oil-based units, while the rates in other countries were comparatively much low.
Had there been proper policies for developing hydel power, Pakistan could have produced 30,000MW from dams on Indus. Ghazi Barotha may have produced 1,400MW and the medium/small dams in different parts of the NWFP over 3,000MW.
Industrial development in the province is sluggish and about more than 5,000 units have been lying closed. It has no proper road system nor has a mechanism for the maintenance of road transport due to the non-availability of funds. The budget for whole population is a paltry Rs13 billion.
I hope that the government would realize the situation and release the balance payment of the royalty, as the NWFP share of hydel power, for the betterment of the people of this province.
MUHAMMAD UNIS ELAHI
Peshawar
ON the 3rd of Oct, I was robbed of Rs 1.035 million which was a loan taken from Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank. This heinous act took place on Khalid Bin Waleed Road by two armed men who came on a motor bike shortly after I withdrew the amount and left the bank located at Allama Iqbal Road.
The snatchers knew exactly how much amount had been withdrawn since they asked for the exact amount, something that makes it obvious that the information had been leaked out from within the bank premises.
This is not the first incident pertaining to this specific branch of bank, for several similar incidents have previously been identified.
The police department is working on this particular case to get maximum information, but the bank officers have proved most non-cooperative, unhelpful and uninformative.
The bank claims that no unauthorized person is allowed to roam around in the bank premises yet there was an obnoxious person who entered the bank after I gave the cheque for withdrawal. He used a mobile phone, which is strictly prohibited inside the bank and was not checked by the security guard.
The man kept watching me, did no transaction and left the bank after I did. What does this prove?
I request the president of the bank to look into this matter and take immediate steps to apprehend the culprits or else the bank will suffer an unfavourable name.
AFFECTEE
Karachi
IF you are standing at a bus stop or passing by in your car from any major street or roundabout, the only objects that you see around are hoardings and billboards.
The city is starting to look more like the Sunday Advertiser rather than a place where human beings live.
This, I think, is a new kind of pollution in the city—a pollution that can visually suffocate a person.
The city administration should maintain a balance between manifestations of commercial motives and the environmental requirements of a human habitat. They could plant some trees as well along the roads.
RAZA ALI
Karachi
I DEEPLY regret and resent the publication of Lahori’s Notebook (Dawn, Oct 7) culpably reproducing extracts from Khushwant Singh’s autobiography containing some remarks against the Quaid-i-Azam.
What motivates such a dishonourable diatribe is typical-ly Indian and needs no comment.
The publication of this trash would not have been so much delight to the eyes and music to the ears of enemies of Pakistan had it not been published by a newspaper whose founder was the victim of these remarks.
On the part of Khushwant Singh and his surrogates in Pakistan, it is plain cowardice to attempt to malign a leader who was more than a match for all the Indian leaders and the British bureaucrats put together — cowardice because a dead man cannot defend himself. There is no lack of his thankful admirers to stand up and be counted.
USMAN KHAN
Karachi
THIS concerns the salary structure of a house officer posted at the hospitals in Sindh. With a meagre salary of Rs3,880, house officers are supposed to work day in and out.
Parents spend a fortune on their children’s studies but what do they get after suffering the enormous troubles and financial burden?
Most of the house officers may be supporting a big family. What future do we hold? The HOs around the world are paid a decent emolument. In Malaysia the pay scale of an HO is equivalant to US$800. In England it is 2,200 sterling pounds.
The federal government has announced a raise in the HOs’ emolument to make it Rs6,210 but the beneficiaries are only those serving in the federal government hospitals. It is unfair to deprive the Sindh government servants of the raise.
I am serving as a house officer in the JPMC. I was not appointed on a federal seat but on a seat for the students graduating from the Sindh Medical College.
Thus I am entitled to the emolument of Rs3,880 only. Isn’t this unjust that despite having the same degree, working in the same setup, I am not entitled to the package being offered to my colleagues appointed on a federal seat?
The health ministry, the Director of JPMC and other relevant authorities are requested to look into the matter which is concerned to a large number of HOs in the country.
A DISTRESSED HOUSE OFFICER JPMC,
Karachi
THE government had introduced the system of daylight saving time as a step towards modernization. It may be a good thing but I would suggest that instead of changing the time or forwarding the clocks, we should change the timings of offices, schools and colleges with changing seasons.
This method would avoid the present confusion and might also help increase the productivity.
M. ZAEEM UL HAQ
Rawalpindi
BEFORE and after the President’s address to the nation on the PTV, the Pakistan flag was fluttering from left to right. That made the moon in the flag a waning moon. Moreover, the flag shown at the left of the President also faced right. That, too, made it a waning moon.
The moon on the flag has to face left to make it a waxing moon.
H. U. HASNAIN
Islamabad
THE government has demanded $700 million from the United States for the use of Pakistani soil for allowing it territory to attack Afghanistan. The question is: is this really the price of our sovereignty? If we agree in principle with the United States in its anti-terrorist policies, then we are morally bound to extend our help free of cost because no price is big enough to surrender one’s sovereignty. However, the United States must also realize our difficulties and help us in our nation-building efforts.
But, unfortunately, the US has usually shunned such responsibility and instead whenever it needs Pakistan’s assistance against its enemies, it commandeers our help through its doctrine of ‘either you are for us or against us, you have no other choice’.
This is called law of the jungle. Moreover, to absolve itself of the moral responsibility to give anything in return, its propaganda machinery starts broadcasting the notion that the people of Pakistan hate the United States, so they deserve to be punished anyway. The same policy seems to be working even today.
The best way the US can help any country is to provide higher training facilities to its qualified people. On the contrary, the US has banned the issuance of F, H and J visas this year for our students, doctors and technical personnel which it had been giving traditionally so generously in the past.
KAMAL AKMAL
Lahore
THE other day I called Dell and, to my surprise, I heard an Indian voice.
I discovered that Dell has its customer services offices in Bangalore also and, therefore, when it is night in the US, the calls are transferred through the satellites to India.
And that made me envious. India has progressed far better than us. Many US companies like Oracle, Microsoft and Dell, have set up their establishments there.
On the other hand, we are regressing. Many multinationals who were here since long, have made or want to make an exit because of the bad law and order situation and an unfavourable investment climate.
REHMAT ALI RAUF
Karachi
I WANT to draw the attention of the government towards the ever-increasing number of beggars in Karachi. Here we can see at the traffic signals beggars of all ages, some even 5 years old but well trained on how to beg.
I have seen a number of them who are physically fit to work. Yet they prefer to earn a living by presenting their saddened faces to beg for alms. It is surprising that the government has allowed unchecked begging on the streets.
I request the concerned authorities to look into the matter and find some suitable solution to the problem.
SYED ADNAN SAEED
Karachi
WHATEVER be the ‘Castilian’ definition of diplomacy, experience shows it would be nearer to ‘delusion in perpetuity’. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has yet again held hope for the play of diplomacy in South Asia after the elections in Pakistan (Dawn Oct 9). While wishing the Secretary of State Godspeed, one cannot but have the chilly feeling that he may also be putting too much store by any logical or problem-solving response from India in the much touted but timorously escapist mode of bilateralism.
With India it is the prospect of grabbing hegemony in the region using Machiavellian principles combined with the guidelines postulated by Chankya: unfortunately, this mindset, whatever the stakes, remains unrelieved, if not compounded, when India also chooses to follow the propaganda philosophy of Goebbels and the insufferable obduracy of V. K. Krishna Menon as frozen official policy.
The present dangerous situation rests squarely on Menon as also stated by the then foreign minister of Pakistan, Zafrulla Khan.
When Mr Menon took over the representation of India in the Security Council on the question of Kashmir, he repudiated everything that had gone before. It was not that he was bereft altogether of the faculty of distinguishing between fact and fiction, truth and falsehood, fallacy and reason, but that he was a cynic and had no use for these flimsy distinctions. Like Goebbels, he believed firmly that a lie repeated persistently begins to take on the colour of truth and, even if it is not accepted in the end, it serves to confuse the issue.
He started by repudiating altogether every obligation of India with reference to Kashmir. The propositions he advanced from time to time may be summarized as follows:
“The accession of Kashmir to India was valid, binding and final from its inception. Under the resolutions of the UNCIP, India’s obligation to withdraw the bulk of its forces from the state was to arise only after Pakistan had withdrawn all its forces from the state. Pakistan having failed to do so, India was under no obligation to withdraw any of its forces. Consequently conditions had now changed and thus India had been released from its obligations.”
The prime minister of India had never used the term plebiscite.
M. J. AS’AD
Karachi
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