The Protocol Conundrum

The not-so-deeply buried VIP Culture debate hops out and about into the national discourse every few months. In this quarter, it has acquired a legislative dimension, initiating when a political resolution was tabled to be passed in the upper house of the Parliament.

This cacophony picked the beat when a few lawmakers lobbied to get a resolution passed to permit their immediate family members to board airplanes without going through security checks at airports. Although they were forced to withdraw from the resolution amid bitter criticism from varied factions, this matter leads one to debate on the necessity of protocols.

The public holds a very strong opinion against VIP culture. One often comes across posts shared on social media promoting how heads of states in the global north or west travel in subway trains like normal citizens instead of commuting through luxury cars and how we lack in maintaining similar standards of equality in our own country. This is partly thanks to the VIP culture itself for longer and unanticipated hours of waiting on roads. And then the politics against VIP culture that have confused the public even more, so much so that they are seldom able to make a distinction between these two: VIP protocol and Security protocol.

Security protocols are a need of the time. It is the repercussion of a protracted conflict and consequence of the ongoing instability in Afghanistan-Pakistan region. One can take a pause and rewind back to the events of a few decades ago. As of now, security protocols are viewed as a lavish facility provided to the bigwigs of our country – a wastage of the taxpayers’ money. The claim can be partially valid, to the point of taxpayers’ money. It is also true that personalities provided with the protocols are elected by the people and come into the system to ‘serve’ Pakistan and its people. But just as such VIPs have crucial responsibilities, their protection and safety is also very critical for us, our future. Since they are soft targets during their time in office, the terrorists intend to create a momentum and bigger impact of damage by targeting high profile figures. When the leaders are targeted, the morale of the work force under them also suffers inevitably. The most recent reference can be taken from the terror incident in Attock, and the unfortunate demise of Punjab’s gallant Home Minister Shuja Khanzada. After Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, and the tragedy of losing Ms. Benazir Bhutto in 2007. The attacks on all these personalities have been huge blows and are widely perceived as a demoralizing tactic. All these leaders were assassinated in the aftermath of thin security measures at the time of the attack.

Political leaders and other high profile figures shy away from identifying lapses in their security protocols because this issue has been getting a constant hype. Public opinion on security protocols has become evident quite rapidly. After the attack on Shuja Khanzada and eighteen others with him, a young member of the Parliament commended the former’s valour on social media: Mr Khanzada had commuted without an armoured car, they praised.

It is needless to narrate the indisputable role the slain Home Minister has played in going after militant groups throughout Punjab, while leading the Counter Terrorism Department of the police from the front. Punjab, in fact, the whole of Pakistan still needed his leadership. Mr Khanzada’s title and office deserved the security that was missing at that particular time, and there is no wisdom in taking pride on that pretext. It was a huge security lapse and must be treated as such. At another occasion, when the Chief Justice Jawad S. Khawaja swore oath to the office in August ’15, he refused to accept the security protocols that came with it.

Can we risk losing the incumbent public figures at the expense of protocol politics and creating a bigger vacuum in our national leadership? As a matter of fact, those who use the protection of notable persons or their security protocols as a political card deepen the confusion among their supporters and the public at large because VIP protocols and security protocols are two different things. Critics of security protocols should reconsider their priorities in politics. Henceforth, it should be made a requisite for the office bearers to be cautious about their security matters and comply with the protocols being regulators of our state machinery. In the meantime, others should refrain from encouraging the practice of VIP culture/protocols.

Published on December 1, 2015 – The Nation

http://nation.com.pk/blogs/01-Dec-2015/security-protocol-is-the-need-of-vips-due-to-the-threats-that-come-with-their-high-offices

“We’re sorry, she’s no more”

January 2010

The stories of ill treatment by doctors in our country are not new but this issue is hyped in the last few months after our cricket star Wasim Akram’s wife Huma Wasim and a three year old child Imanae; the only daughter of a couple, were killed due to mere negligence of doctors in ‘posh’ hospitals of the country.

Huma Wasim had a brain tumor which was being treated at the National Hospital in DHA, Lahore. A three member enquiry committee formed following her tragic death concluded that doctors in Lahore were unable to diagnose Huma’s problem for which her condition deteriorated. The doctors are also blamed for keeping her husband in darkness regarding the serious health of his wife to extract more money from him. When her condition got completely out of hand, she was referred to some hospital in Singapore but the air ambulance landed in Chennai Apollo Hospital due to further complications. Eventually, she died.

Story of Imanae Malik began on November 29, second day of Eid-ul-Azha. The family had arrived all the way from England to celebrate Eid with their near and dear ones in Pakistan. Imanae spilled hot water on her wrist and was rushed to the Doctors Hospital by her parents at 3am in Johar Town, Lahore. According to Imanae’s father Mr.Aqeel Malik, the doctor on duty who was awoken from sleep instructed the nurse to inject four high potency injections to sedate the little angel; which was fatal. On the other hand, her parents were kept unaware of conditions that prevailed. Imanae was dead when the doctors referred her to Children’s Hospital without any documentation or ambulance. When Aqeel Malik and his wife reached the emergency ward of Fatima Memorial Hospital, they were told that their daughter had left the world about an hour ago. On their return back to Doctors Hospital, doctors and staff who had treated little Imanae, were absent and the management refused to handover their patient’s file and discharge slip to them. Moreover, the pitiful parents were threatened to leave the hospital immediately and keep their mouths shut after the incident that had ruined their home.

Imanae’s father led protests in Lahore for bringing those ‘butchers’ to justice. He said that these ‘Slaughter houses’ should be banned for their negligence. He has made public groups and pages on ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘Myspace’ for public awareness and support. This led public sharing of many other people’s experiences who had lost their loved ones at the hands of doctors in private or public hospitals. Some people are also of the view that the treatment in public hospitals has always been very poor but the issue is highlighted only when the elite class is affected by the ill treatment of doctors. Many cases still remain unnoticed.

Another case of doctors’ negligence left a member of National Assembly dead at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Islamabad. According to Dr. Altaf, the Executive Director of PIMS, Faiz Muhammad Khan (PML-N) was referred to PIMS hospital after being treated for four days at Ayub Medical Complex, Abbottabad. When brought to PIMS in a critical condition, he was shifted to the ‘private ward’ instead of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where he was not treated for half an hour and at last succumbed to a heart attack. All these cases boosted each other and were reported on newspapers and television channels which gathered enough suspicion and sympathy of the public. Doctors Hospital’s pharmacy was immediately sealed while two doctors and a nurse at PIMS were also suspended for ultimate irresponsibility.

Pakistan Society of Anesthesiologists (PSA) has expressed concern over the growing incidents of deaths at the hands of paramedical staff at various hospitals across the country and demanded the government to take serious notice of the issue. The PSA also demanded the government not to allow any staff nurse in any case to inject an injection to the patients in the absence of the doctor.

A 20- year old student of engineering at Karachi University was fighting for his life at a local private hospital after being injected a false injection. According to General Secretary PSA Dr. Safia Zafar Siddiqui, the main reason behind these deaths was an injection called “transamin” which is being used to control bleeding. But when doctors prescribe transamin in illegible handwriting, the semiliterate person at the medical store gives another injection “tracrium” and again the staff nurse injects it without checking, which results in the death of an innocent patient.

Nonetheless, this does not happen in all the cases since all the patients are not taken to hospitals due to injurious bleeding. Cases of fatal treatment have also been reported in patients of cardiac arrest, diarrhea, child labour and surgeries that neither checked by doctors nor well-treated by staff nurses resulted in abandonment of limbs due to intense infections. Surprisingly enough, this profession is also pathetically used as a business where unprofessional people open private clinics in low profile areas to earn a living and drench innocent people to serious health problems.

The Holy Book Al Quran narrates…”whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind”(Al- Ma’ida:32). It is the duty of the doctor to supervise the staff and drugs being injected to the patient. Every faithful Muslim believes that life and death are in the hands of God but a doctor’s extreme negligence can not be justified with this belief since God has also ordered for dedication with medication and sincerity towards one’s duty.

Many such incidents have been reported earlier but some questions still arise. Why does our government wait for public protests to take action against extreme incidents? Do we have to come to roads with placards for all our issues? Does our society lack in morality and professionalism? Have we lost our integrity as a nation which indirectly effects all our institutions? In fact, we have not lost our moral standards as a nation which were clearly shown by our people during the earthquake tragedy of 8th October 2005. Story begins with admissions of ineligible students to medical colleges, then ineligible doctors to hospitals and ends with fatal incidents and public upheavals.