KARACHI, Aug 9: The number of quacks is increasing fast in all localities, especially suburban ones, of the metropolis.

They have long been playing with people’s life with complete impunity under the garb of professional doctors. Had the authorities in the health department paid proper attention to improvement of the government health care units, the menace of quackery would have never spread to this extent. But it seems that the authorities have deliberately turned a blind eye to the growing menace.

To open a clinic in some backward area of Karachi is very easy, and indeed a lucrative business, mainly for those educated jobless people who have good knowledge of medicines.

Contribution of quacks to the spread of infectious diseases like hepatitis, Aids, etc., is quite substantial but the main reason behind the failure of civil society in checking their activity and growth is non-availability of recognised medical professions in the localities dominated by low-income group. The people with insufficient income have no option but to consult quacks for their medical treatment.

During a survey, it was observed that for a population of over 5,000, some 10 to 15 quacks are available at shops and clinics. They have displayed big signboards inscribed with attractive slogans of public welfare, names of highly qualified male and female doctors, etc.

Very few of the private dispensaries have the facilities of doctors, ultrasound machines and laboratories. At some of them, circumcisions are also performed. The patients, who can easily fall prey to quacks, are the illiterate and poor labourers working in local factories.

In most cases, labourers are rushed to such clinics in an emergency situation. Most of the quacks have their own medical stores where employees could easily ‘decode’ items of a prescription from the relevant quack. Such a prescription would be a puzzle for operators of other medical stores.

The quacks would clearly advise their patients to buy their prescribed medicines from a particular medical store.

The shocking aspect of the story is that these quacks pose themselves as ‘specialists’ in every field and keep trying to handle a case even of serious nature. They would never let the patient refer to any other doctor if they failed to diagnose his problem and provide proper treatment.

In some areas, it was observed that the so-called doctors are even non-matric and unable to name the parts of body in English, but they feel pride in handling the job using their experience.

Astonishingly, the owners of different pharmaceutical companies have been offering huge commissions, gratifications and gifts to the quacks to promote sales.

The quacks are well aware of the fact that they are playing with the helpless people’s life, still they continue to indulge in the practice.

At most clinics, quacks keep a big bottle of ‘mixture’, bought at wholesale rate. A small quantity of this mixture is given to patients with advice to consume it thrice a day in an equal quantity. The mixture, along with a prescription, costs a patient Rs20 to 30.

A quack in Haroonabad Colony (Shershah) told this reporter that he was just using the experience of his father, who was also not an MBBS doctor, but had better public relationship with the area people for a long time. He claimed that quacks would have to pay a mutually agreed amount to the officials of the health department whenever they would visit their clinics.

Most patients getting treatment at the quacks’ clinics really appeared helpless. A vendor, Rasool Khan, a resident of Ittehad Town, said: “I earn Rs150-200 a day and have seven children to rear. I cannot afford spending money and time to go to a good hospital far away from here. More money is involved in the treatment at such hospitals. Therefore, people like me have to depend on quacks.”

A shopkeeper, Imran Khan, suggested that the government should establish hospitals equipped with all basic facilities in the backward areas on the outskirts of the city. This, he said, would help reduce burden on the city’s existing hospitals.

At many clinics, people complained that the so-called doctors would ask them for unnecessary tests, only to make the treatment more expensive and make their own share in profit of the lab-owners keep swelling.

Asad Khan, Shakir, Nisar, Alamgir and others proposed that the government should establish new dispensaries in all main centres of the towns.