KARACHI, Oct 3: A human rights activist, Zohra Yusuf, said on Monday that the government was not fulfilling its responsibility towards provision of quality health care to people. She was speaking at a lecture at the quarterly meeting of the Centre of Biomedical and Ethics and Culture of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation.

Referring to recent water contamination and consequential deaths in Landhi, she said as poor people were being neglected, the society, it seems, had become accustomed to deaths due to diseases.

Social inequalities, she said, have led to a poor outcome in health and other sectors. She referred to the spending on defence sector and held that it was disproportionately higher than the social sector spending.

She also cited data from the Economic Survey of Pakistan and held that situation was pathetic when it comes to health facilities and their availability.

She regretted that the government was shifting responsibilities and relying more on private sector which had made the health care delivery quite expensive.

She urged the NGOs, doctors and people to raise their voice and demand health care from the state. She also criticized misuse of basic health units in rural areas and suburbs.

The government should look into the causes of poverty and glaring injustices done to the common man, she said, and adding that the human rights activists and health professionals should also be more alert and responsive to cases of domestic violence and child abuse.

At a point, Dr Rizvi said a bill to allow cadaver transplants was pending with the government for reasons best known to the government, and he personally felt that there was no obvious opposition to it from any quarter.