| April 14, 2003 | Monday | Safar 11, 1424 |
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An open-and-shut case!
SECRETARY of State Colin Powell’s recent assurance that the US has no intention of attacking any other country following the war in Iraq will help soothe frazzled nerves in Europe and across the Muslim world. There has been widespread speculation that the euphoria over an easy victory in Iraq could prompt the hawks in Washington to press for similar action against Syria followed by Iran. This speculation was given further credence by comments made during the war by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who accused Syria of supplying military assistance to Iraq and of allowing senior Iraqi officials to escape there. There have been a number of other threatening statements by influential hawks in the Bush administration accusing both Syria and Iran of developing weapons of mass destruction and of harbouring terrorists. Any move against the two countries could have catastrophic consequences. Following on the heels of the universally opposed Iraq war, any further widening of America’s doctrine of pre-emption in action could plunge the region into turmoil and further polarize a deeply divided world still seething over the unilateralist US attack on Iraq.
Most of its allies, including Britain, France, Russia, Germany and the pro-US Arab states, are urging Washington to shun further confrontation and move instead towards healing the rifts opened up by the war, restoring the battered credibility of the United Nations and putting the Palestinian-Israeli peace process back on track. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in particular, is desperate to mend fences with the rest of Europe and revive the scuttled Middle East peace process to counter the widely held view in the region that the US is out to punish the Muslim world while turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the Israelis against the Palestinians. US Secretary of State Colin Powell is also believed to support this line of thinking. However, his views on the way forward are being strongly opposed from within the Bush administration by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney. The two men and a group of advisers close to President Bush are known to be part of a hawkish cabal that has long advocated unilateral action by the US against countries that are hostile to it or threaten its interests. The group also maintains close links with Israel’s Likud Party. Part of their agenda is to redraw the map of the Middle East to ensure Israel’s dominance in the region.
President Bush is now being pulled in opposite directions over the course of action to take now that Iraq has been brought to heel. For the sake of the future stability of the Middle East, one can only hope that Bush heeds the pleas of his allies and world opinion rather than the dangerously misguided advice being proferred by the ideologically motivated group of neo-conservatives within his government. Given the hostility and bitterness provoked by the Iraq invasion, it would be suicidal to plunge into another bloody confrontation in the Middle East. Any such adventure can only win more recruits for extremist groups which argue that Washington’s hidden agenda is to crush and dominate Muslims the world over and take control of their territory and natural resources. If the US hopes to win back any of its lost goodwill in the region it must swiftly move to broker a just and fair peace in the Middle East and push for the creation of a stable and viable Palestinian state.
RECENT reports paint a disturbing picture about the state of health of the public medical institutions in the twin cities. The Rawalpindi General Hospital, for instance, is under a Rs 20 million debt owed mainly to the gas, electricity and telephone companies. An eight million rupees bailout plan for it by the administration of Rawalpindi Medical College is awaiting approval by the board of governors, while a separate case for another two million rupees is being submitted for putting into operation a badly needed new gas pipeline for the hospital. In addition, the planned expansion of RGH’s obstetrics and gynaecology unit, for which the provincial government had already allotted seven million rupees in 1993, has not materialized because the funds were diverted to other projects outside of RGH. Since patients from not only Rawalpindi Division but from the adjoining areas of the NWFP and Azad Kashmir are also referred here, the result has been overcrowding in its gynaecology unit.
Rawalpindi Medical College itself is not exactly in the pink of health either. Lack of funds has prevented it from buying the latest medical books as well as setting up a computer facility in its library, two very essential components of modern-day study and research, especially in medicine. RMC needs at least half a million rupees annually to maintain a decent library, but it actually gets only a fraction of it. Then there was the report that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan had recently removed the teaching hospital status of the Federal Government Services Hospital in Islamabad because of two major deficiencies — lack of a library and non-payment of enhanced stipends to trainee residential medical officers. Clearly more funds need to be made available for these institutions to provide efficient health care and good education and training to medical students and trainee doctors. More important is the need to ensure that these funds are properly managed and utilized for the purposes for which they are given.
THE closure of a government hospital in Toba Tek Singh one day after its opening is disconcerting and shows lack of planning on the part of the Punjab health department. According to a report, the day after the facility’s inauguration, patients found the doors of the facility locked, with even the plaque commemorating the hospital’s opening missing. A health official said that the hospital was closed down because the government had given no official sanction for the hospital and hence there was no question of it carrying on its operation. That is why doctors and other medical staff present at the inauguration, performed by the provincial health minister, had to be requisitioned from the district headquarters hospital nearby. Apparently, the provincial fisheries minister, who happens to have been elected from the area, had promised in his election campaign that a new hospital would be built if he was elected. It seems that the establishment of this hospital was a fulfilment of that campaign promise.
A number of questions arise from this farcical event. How could a hospital be allowed to be inaugurated without any official decision to run it as such? Does the minister or the officials who facilitated the inauguration really think that the electorate can be taken for a ride that easily? Now that a hospital building exists in the area, it would be a good idea if the Punjab health department were to sanction doctors and medical staff for this facility so that it can actually become a fully functional hospital and serve the people of the area.