THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Poor lawmakers’ (Jan 28) which rightly advised the people’s representatives to set an example of caring about the common Pakistani by remaining within reasonable limits. However, our lawmakers asked for a substantial pay raise, and got what they asked for.

On the day the said editorial appeared, there was a letter in these columns, titled: ‘Waiting for a scan’ (Jan 28). Through the letter, the writer informed the readers as well as the leaders that due to intense pain in his spinal cord, he had visited the Mayo Hospital in Lahore, where doctors advised a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. He was shocked to learn that he had to wait for four months because that was the regular waiting time for the scan. He wondered how a patient with acute pain could wait that long.

Reading the editorial and the letter on the same day, I failed to understand how these lawmakers can still think their pay-raise demand was justified in the absence of a sufficient number of MRI scanners in government hospitals.

K.M. Shafi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2025