I RECEIVED a call recently from a former government official who had retired from a senior position a very long time ago. He had just returned home after receiving free medical treatment lasting many days in a government hospital. I greeted him warmly for having recovered from the serious illness, but found him in an angry and agitated frame of mind.

He had been told by the hospital staff that they could do nothing more in his case. They did not transfer him to a private hospital, as they had no hospital-to-hospital transfer system in place. “I will report the matter to the chief minister,” the gentleman kept repeating the complaint till we hung up.

I did not have the heart to explain that there are millions of people in the finest hospitals across the globe whose doctors arrive at the same conclusion. Beyond a certain time, there are no more interven-tions and no more referrals. Clearly, Pakistani government officials, even when they have been long in retirement, feel they are entitled to disproportional and unequal medical treatment. This is perhaps a bad tradition established by many politicians who have had received treatment abroad at taxpayers’ expense.

Pakistan’s filthy rich ruling elite, spoiled by years of obscene perks and privileges, refuses to recognise the new reality. Pakistan is no longer the same country. It is hollow, broke and struggling. Its people have been deeply wounded by the tyranny of inequality and poverty that has been thrust upon them by the greedy, self-entitled elite.

Will the new occupants of the Cons- titution Avenue in Islamabad care to pay heed to the call of logic, and strip this entitled class of all those perks, perquisites and treatments that are not available to every ordinary citizen of Pakistan?

Naeem Sadiq
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2024