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Karachi
When hardly a day goes by without target killings in Karachi, what will happen if the city’s private sector decides to wrap up its medical services?
Bodies dumped in gunny bags will rot, ailing patients will reach hospitals in hurriedly-hired taxis and in case another fire like the one in a factory in Baldia Town erupts, no morgue will have the capacity to store the dead till their identification.
There is neither a single system of government-run ambulance in the restive city of 21 million people where the average daily death toll has reached an alarming figure of 10, nor a morgue with the capacity for cold storage.
This situation exists despite a preamble in the Constitution, “the State shall provide basic necessities of life such as...medical relief for all citizens irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race...and the unemployed.”
The only functional public morgue in the city belongs to the Edhi Foundation in Sohrab Goth. It can accommodate 250 bodies. In case a major accident erupts in the city, it too becomes short of space.
None of the three government hospitals of the city has a morgue. There was one situated at the Sindh Medical College, but it has been years since it last functioned.
“The air conditioning failed and it was never repaired. The government should run its own morgue; it’s an essential part of a big city and that too with a crime rate as high as that in Karachi,” a police surgeon told The News on the condition of anonymity.
However, even if the morgue at the Sindh Medical College starts functioning, the problem will not be solved.
“It [the morgue] can only accommodate 12 bodies,” Prof M Saeed Quraishy, the medical superintendant at the Civil Hospital, told The News.
“There are no compartments and bodies have to be stacked on top of each other, and that too only for a few hours in the absence of air conditioning.”
When it comes to ambulances, all three government hospitals combined together do not have more than 30 ambulances. The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre owns 12, confirmed Dr Seemin Jamali, the in-charge of the accident and emergency department at the hospital. The Civil and Abbasi Shaheed hospitals have around 10 or 12.
Besides, the ambulances only operate within the hospitals. “They are used for transferring patients to wards,” said Jamali.
Quraishy said there was no system through which patients could call an ambulance home from the Civil Hospital.
The long rows of stretchers with patients lying under the sun at these hospitals are proof enough that the number of these ambulances is insufficient even within the medical facilities.
Arif Hasan, a renowned architect and the chairman of the Urban Resource Centre, said the government’s failure had compelled the private sector to step in. “Once the private sector took over, the government relaxed and stepped back, even though constitutionally it is the responsibility of the government.”
He pointed out that in other South Asian cities i.e. Calcutta, Mumbai and Kathmandu, there was some role of the government in the provision of these facilities.
“If the government cannot provide these services, it should ‘facilitate’ them. This includes subsidising the power tariff and reducing taxes,” he added.
But the Edhi morgue is usually found complaining about power outages and has to use generators to keep its air conditioners running.
Two months after the Baldia factory fire, the bodies of 28 victims still lie at the morgue and there are no claimants. The bodies have burnt beyond recognition and the officials at the morgue are still awaiting DNA test results from Islamabad.
“You are aware of the law and order situation in the city. New bodies arrive every day and we have no space to keep them,” said an official at the Edhi morgue.
“We have requested the government several times to hurry up the process [identification of the remaining Baldia factory fire victims], but the bodies continue to rot with each passing day.”
When hardly a day goes by without target killings in Karachi, what will happen if the city’s private sector decides to wrap up its medical services?
Bodies dumped in gunny bags will rot, ailing patients will reach hospitals in hurriedly-hired taxis and in case another fire like the one in a factory in Baldia Town erupts, no morgue will have the capacity to store the dead till their identification.
There is neither a single system of government-run ambulance in the restive city of 21 million people where the average daily death toll has reached an alarming figure of 10, nor a morgue with the capacity for cold storage.
This situation exists despite a preamble in the Constitution, “the State shall provide basic necessities of life such as...medical relief for all citizens irrespective of sex, caste, creed or race...and the unemployed.”
The only functional public morgue in the city belongs to the Edhi Foundation in Sohrab Goth. It can accommodate 250 bodies. In case a major accident erupts in the city, it too becomes short of space.
None of the three government hospitals of the city has a morgue. There was one situated at the Sindh Medical College, but it has been years since it last functioned.
“The air conditioning failed and it was never repaired. The government should run its own morgue; it’s an essential part of a big city and that too with a crime rate as high as that in Karachi,” a police surgeon told The News on the condition of anonymity.
However, even if the morgue at the Sindh Medical College starts functioning, the problem will not be solved.
“It [the morgue] can only accommodate 12 bodies,” Prof M Saeed Quraishy, the medical superintendant at the Civil Hospital, told The News.
“There are no compartments and bodies have to be stacked on top of each other, and that too only for a few hours in the absence of air conditioning.”
When it comes to ambulances, all three government hospitals combined together do not have more than 30 ambulances. The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre owns 12, confirmed Dr Seemin Jamali, the in-charge of the accident and emergency department at the hospital. The Civil and Abbasi Shaheed hospitals have around 10 or 12.
Besides, the ambulances only operate within the hospitals. “They are used for transferring patients to wards,” said Jamali.
Quraishy said there was no system through which patients could call an ambulance home from the Civil Hospital.
The long rows of stretchers with patients lying under the sun at these hospitals are proof enough that the number of these ambulances is insufficient even within the medical facilities.
Arif Hasan, a renowned architect and the chairman of the Urban Resource Centre, said the government’s failure had compelled the private sector to step in. “Once the private sector took over, the government relaxed and stepped back, even though constitutionally it is the responsibility of the government.”
He pointed out that in other South Asian cities i.e. Calcutta, Mumbai and Kathmandu, there was some role of the government in the provision of these facilities.
“If the government cannot provide these services, it should ‘facilitate’ them. This includes subsidising the power tariff and reducing taxes,” he added.
But the Edhi morgue is usually found complaining about power outages and has to use generators to keep its air conditioners running.
Two months after the Baldia factory fire, the bodies of 28 victims still lie at the morgue and there are no claimants. The bodies have burnt beyond recognition and the officials at the morgue are still awaiting DNA test results from Islamabad.
“You are aware of the law and order situation in the city. New bodies arrive every day and we have no space to keep them,” said an official at the Edhi morgue.
“We have requested the government several times to hurry up the process [identification of the remaining Baldia factory fire victims], but the bodies continue to rot with each passing day.”
Posted in: Karachi News
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