RECENTLY I encountered a miserable situation when I took my uncle, who had severe stomach pain, to hospital. This was not the first time that I visited Karachi hospitals but this was the worst experience ever.

At 2100 hours, with a fear in my heart carrying my uncle with painful screams, I visited four topmost hospitals of Karachi and after reaching each hospital’s emergency department I saw a hopeless situation.

In the first hospital which comes on the top five list, I was told to take back my patient as they didn’t have sufficient space to even look at the patient. I rushed my uncle to the other one right beside it and one of the most expensive where the situation was even worse.

My uncle kept lying there for more than one-and-a-half hours and no one even bothered to ask as to what had happened to him. The cherry on the top was that the hospital administration was more bothered about the car which I left in a hurry without parking it in the designated parking area , almost 500 metres away from the emergency department.

How can one leave the patient dying in pain at the door and park the car? After spending the tormenting hours I was told to take my patient to another hospital as they were working on optimum capacity of workforce and had no time to at least give a first aid.

Then I rushed to another renowned hospital where I was relieved by having doctor assistance at least but they put me in another trouble by saying that they wanted immediate ultrasound of stomach and they didn’t have the facility at that time. I immediately called all the big hospitals of the city and received the same answer that their labs are closed; that was possible only in the morning.

Standing there with such a sense of helplessness, I could do nothing.

Why don’t authorities take some action as nothing can be more significant than giving the first aid and appropriate cure to a person dying?

FAZALUR RAHMAN Karachi