ONCE again in Sehwan, at the scene of the suicide bombing at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine on Thursday, it was clear that this nation is still woefully ill-prepared in its long-running battle against extremism. While little could be done for the men, women and children who perished in the blast itself, the lack of emergency medical facilities also undoubtedly claimed the lives of many among the injured. With virtually no ambulances in Sehwan itself, it can be safely assumed that those who were clinging to life by a thread died where they lay on the blood-soaked floor of the shrine. Some of the injured were taken to hospital in rickshaws and private vehicles, but the local hospital is a modest 70-bed facility, completely inadequate in terms of personnel and equipment to deal with an emergency of this magnitude. Appallingly, it was nearly an hour before ambulances could arrive from other cities and transport the wounded to bigger hospitals in Dadu, Jamshoro and Nawabshah, a perilously long drive, especially for those with grievous injuries. Those medical facilities too were unable to handle the most critical cases, which were sent to Karachi. Already, the death toll, cited as 72 a few hours after the blast, has climbed to around 90.

Fighting terrorism in a holistic way is about far more than security operations, a depoliticised police or even reforms in the criminal justice system. It also entails shoring up the infrastructure that can prevent needless loss of innocent lives. This includes modern trauma centres, well-trained paramedics and a state-funded network of ambulances, including air ambulances, to quickly transport victims from remote areas. Here the apathy of the provincial governments and their measly budgetary allocations to the health sector deserve to be roundly condemned. The shocking state of public health facilities in Pakistan, a country that prides itself on being a nuclear power and an emerging market, is a matter of shame. These deficiencies come into particularly sharp focus whenever an incident involves multiple casualties, whether in a terrorist attack or a road accident. Moreover, it is not necessarily the case that subpar medical facilities only exist outside major urban centres. Who can forget the ghastly Aug 8 bombing last year in Quetta where, despite the explosion taking place on the steps of the Civil Hospital’s casualty ward, lack of timely medical attention was responsible for at least some of the 70-plus deaths?

It is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that our ruling elite have little regard for the value of human life. After all, the latest target, one of the most frequented shrines in the country that attracts up to a million visitors every year, was an obvious one for a terrorist attack. The lack of preparedness for such an eventuality was short-sighted and callous in the extreme.

Published in Dawn February 19th, 2017