Medical Treatment in Need of Medical Treatment

‘There used to live a fool in Polermo who always thought that every woman who looked towards him loved him’. (Starting sentence of one of the stories by an exceptionally revolutionary writer of Italy, about 300 years before).

On the pattern of above opening sentence, peoples of the future world will remark “There used to be such innocent rulers of a country called Pakistan, who always thought that citizens not protesting and agitating were happy and content”.

Before taking up the principle topic of general medical treatment, a brief of closely related circumstances are necessary to be recorded here. Mankind’s lifespan is related to solution of problems, frivolous and serious. Living individuals or peoples will never be free of day to day problems. If the process of the solutions stops, even partially, the accumulation of the problems, at a stage, disrupts or extincts life all together. Pakistan is one of the world’s states where piling up of problems for the last half a century period continues. This is because full concentration of politicians and rulers has been for maintenance of vote bank for grabbing the Power Chair.

For more than half a century period, more and more incompetent rulers have been mercilessly damaging this country that had been procured at the cost of honor and lives of countless women, children and men. Such sacred territory must have been free from all evils and greedy politicians. Whereas, at least, half a dozen contemporary poorest countries of the region have grown to become economic powers, graph of our progress is continuously traveling downwards.

Whenever the people of future world will talk of Pakistan, they will talk of politicians coming to power not on the basis of reliable leadership qualities, but on the basis of their expertness in the art of diverting opinion of the citizens through totally false slogans. They never even thought of serving the nation and the state. Their grabbing of the Power Chair had been for status and foreign bank accounts. Whereas, the nations of future will talk of Fall of Roman Empire, they will talk of Pakistan, whose politicians considered receiving foreign dictations as matter of political strategy. Whenever the future people will talk of Pakistan, they will remark with raised eyebrows that the politicians of Pakistan had totally forgotten the purposes for procurement of the state at exceptionally high cost of honor and lives that history has never known. Let us have a look at the performance of the rulers since year 1956.

A- Appalling deterioration of administrative and social setups:-

• Half of the country was lost and rest of it is talking of disintegration.
• Out of control misappropriation hitting as sacred a religious obligation as visit to Kaba, the house of Almighty.
• Uncontrolled law & order situation.
• Uncontrolled crimes of sex, violating rights of women.
• Zero work on national construction as Pakistanis. On the reverse propagation of foreign culture of Mama, Papa, Daddy, Mummy, fashion shows, Valentine day, mixed marathon race, etc, is carried out very sincerely, absolutely free of any charges.
• Unforeseen indiscipline in matters of duty and responsibility.
• Industry failing for lack of electricity and gas.
• Slow poisoning type destruction of railway whereas, 11,000 railway trains are running on tracks every 24 hours in India.
• PIA in critical condition.
• Maintenance of roads and irrigation system in looking towards ABD or WB.
• Foreign debts on the increase day by day.
• Education system sagging.
• Day to day dependent foreign policy.
• No system of educating the citizens for precautions against common diseases due to which all hospitals are over crowded.

B- GOOD PROGRESS:-

• Increase in the number of singers, actors, female models, female baby models, fashion shows, theaters, jokers, poets and so on.

C- GRIEVANCE:-

• Dead slow advancement in technological progress, dead slow exploration of internal resources.
• No future projects for water, power, gas and oil.
• Zero research work for alternates of energy.

Inspite of all that, the rulers have been releasing commitments in a tone indicating that they will neither ever retire nor die. Nature of problems demands that no single political party can solve them. There has to be a joint action by all the political parties put together. Outline of helpful points has been discussed in the article headed, Corrupt States and Democracy

Now coming to the subject proper, hospitals and private clinics have seen hoard of patients never known to history of this part of territory. Nobody is taking serious note of situation. Rulers, politicians and scholars are taking the situation for granted. Nobody cares that the situation was not similar 50 years ago. Comparison of population of years 1950’s and 2010’s bears no relation to the enormous increase in the number of patients. Number of patients suffering from ordinary common ailments has increased beyond all proportions. Nobody gets into analyzing the appalling increase in the number of heart, kidneys and liver diseases. Except for the serious diseases like Cancer, Hepatizes, Aids, VDs and serious infectious diseases, all the rest of the ailments and diseases can be very well be controlled on the basis of precautions, physical exercise and specific measures to be advised by medical experts. Here are some of the reasons that need attention of all of us:-

1- Adulterated spices and victuals.

2- Over regular doses of allopathic medicines.

3- Profiteering by producers of medicines.

4- The groups of physicians living and yearning for more and more luxurious life.

5- Badly allergic attitude toward physical exercise and hard work.

Representative incidents and happenings explaining each of above five reasons are narrated below:-

For serial No. 1, adulterated foods and food’s ingredients commonly consumed packed spices, packed ready dishes like Kheer, Noodles, Kofta, Rassmalae, etc, and over processed food like Karai Gosht, Chaamps and some kinds of Chips,

I shall quote the statement of rickshaw driver of Multan (year 2008). “I was waiting for a customer. One of my acquaintances approached me and started convincing me to leave rickshaw business and work for him to have much more daily income. On my asking details he told me that I shall have to grind turmeric for him. He told me that he will provide me with 70% pure solid turmeric and 30% unknown material about which I will never raise a question. I told the man that I shall have to consult my family. When I consulted my family, the members refused the offer and said that they will continue managing necessities within small income of rickshaw”.

It is so simple to analyze the fraud by knowing that original turmeric costs Rupees 80 per 250 grams. Whereas, packed or powder turmeric costs only Rupees 50 for 250 grams weight. Similar is the case with all packed ready spices.

For reason at serial No. 2, I would like to reproduce a line from an article of monthly Readers’ Digest that I read some 40 years ago. ‘As simple a medicine as Aspirin leaves irreparable losses to human body’. Latest opinion may be taken from the experts.

For reason serial No. 3, I lay down the remarks of a medical representative, who met me at a medical store in Sialkot during year 2011. He said that all medical representatives are interrogated in case of low sale of medicines of seasonal sicknesses like Flu, Cold, Fever, Loose motions, etc. He quoted the remarks of his employer, “Why? Have the people stopped getting sick”.

For reason No. 4, I have three representative statements / dialogues / conversations to offer:

First – during year 1990s statement of a poor lady, my next door neighbor: “While practicing cricket, my son fell on the ground and injured the palm of his hand. We washed his hand with soap, applied vegetable ghee to the injury and covered it with cloth. Next morning we saw that his hand was slightly swollen. I decided to take him to Civil Hospital for proper bandage. A few yards before hospital gate, a car stopped by our side. There was the doctor from whom I used to get treatment for younger children. The doctor asked me to tell him the reason for going to hospital. After my answer, he ordered me to come to his private clinic for which he was turning the car. After the bandage in his clinic he charged the fee. Next morning, boy’s hand was like a small football. Weeping I went to doctor’s clinic, where after examination, the doctor told me that the case has got very serious as the boy had suffered from Gangrene for which if costly treatment is not given, boy’s hand might have to be amputated. I started weeping more loudly and asked him what to be done. He said that treatment will be very costly. I asked him the approximate cost of the treatment. Strange enough, he called his compounder and asked him to declare the cost. The man said, that it will cost Rupees 35,000. I did not posses even Rupees 3,500 to spend. Weeping all the way, I went to civil hospital. The bandage was done, and we returned home. Next morning to my astonishment, they boy’s hand was normal. I thanked God. All I spent was Rupees 700”.

Right at the end of her story, I recollected that about 10 years ago, I had heard exactly similar conversation between this very doctor and a factory worker, who got injured his hand during manufacture work and who had been treated by this very doctor 24 hours before. In this clinic I had been waiting for medicine for my son when the young man entered the clinic with horribly swollen hand. This very doctor had immediately remarked, “I think the injury has developed over to Gangrene and maybe amputation is necessary”.

Second statement by a young doctor who qualified from King Edward Medical College Lahore, during 1990s, “I had to leave for USA for higher studies after 3 months. I fixed an appointment with MS of a private hospital of high reputation in Sialkot. During the meeting, I told the MS that I had 3 months, before leaving for USA for higher studies and that I wanted to serve the patients, if there was a vacancy with him. The MS, a senior doctor, told me that he had a vacancy if I could follow the basic principle of the hospital. Confused I asked him to explain. He said that for almost every patient the disease is further developed over to critical stage. At the stage when death appears to be very close, actually curing treatment is started and continued up to complete recovery. This serves two main purposes. First that hospital running expenses including room rent are managed and secondly the news goes to streets of the city that such and such hospital cured a patient, who was at death’s door. He pointed to a bed occupied by an old lady. He explained that the lady is Diabetic and we have fixed a glucose drip to bring her to Comma, after which the real treatment will start”.

Third statement of a junior doctor follows (year 2010), “I got a message from a foreign qualified Arthritis specialist asking me to see him during his clinic hours. I did not know him before, but as a matter courtesy, I fixed an appointment with him. During the meeting he gave me an offer of 40% of fees collected from patients persuaded by me. I refused the offer straight away and left considerably annoyed”.

For the fifth and last reason stated above, sound system of pursuing people for taking regular exercise can reduce the number of patients of heart troubles, diabetes and a large number of diseases. Taking three times meals rich in fats and sugar with no considerable activity, results in bad health.

As health of citizens is always top priority of the government, there must be some system for supervision of private hospitals and clinics. Natural spices must replace the processed powdered spices. Packed foods need to be regularly put to chemical analysis with even treatment to foreign and domestic companies. Guidelines for healthy simple food items and regular daily exercise should be communicated through Family Planning staff during their contacts with house wives. There should be periodic lectures in all schools and colleges, government or private, on maintenance of health fitness. At least for common diseases, including problems related to heart, kidneys and liver, the number of patients can be adequately controlled and reduced gradually.

Whenever we talk on health, physical fitness and strength and values of exercise, we must not forget Mr. Jack Llanne (expired year 2011, California). As long as life exists on planet Earth, his contributions in health matters with simplest possible foods will remain extremely useful. A study of his books can amazingly reduce the number of patients in the world, especially in Pakistan, where foods have done far more harm than good to mankind’s health. Watching the profuse number of patients of common diseases, one doubts that recipe channels on TV are matter of some conspiracy. These programs might be aimed at bringing in more and more patients to the hospitals and clinics. So get instructions from works of Jack Llanne and remain healthy for whole life. It will be worthwhile to add Jack Llanne’s guidelines in courses of classes 9^th to 12^th and anybody who fails in health paper must be declared fail in all.

All physicians, doctors and people involved in food and spices related business, must study Urdu / English translations of the holy book of their faith and religion daily, at least for 15 minutes regularly before starting duty and business. Those not believing in any religion may get into study of the responsibilities towards other human being. In some hospitals, recitation of holly book is essential part of commencing duty. Such hospitals have a record of serving patients within minimum possible expenses. I have been noting some doctors of these hospitals using motorcycle for the last so many years and their living conditions are also very simple.

I am sure, that most of the experts of medical professionals in India regularly study Gheeta, Bible and Grunth Sahib, before starting duty. As a result of blessing of spiritual guidance, most of them are free from money making trends. That is why so many Pakistani children have been successfully treated in India, free of charges.

Tags: Health, pakistan hospitals, political

Category: Health, Social