From Benazir to Bisma

Both were victims of protocol and dysfunctional health system

ISLAMABAD: Although Bisma and Benazir Bhutto had lived in different worlds, they met the same fate as both were victims of protocol and dysfunctional health system.

While the former was born to a poor family, the latter received poor treatment shortly before and soon after death.Edhi Foundation donated a coffin for her, otherwise used for the burial of unclaimed and impoverished Pakistanis.

Before flying to Naudero, the former prime minister was found lying on a stretcher with broken wheels. Ironically, that was the best available in the hospital.That no VIP has ever thought of being treated at government hospitals is one of the major reasons of this neglect. 

If 10-month Bisma died in Karachi last week after being denied entry to hospital due to VIP protocol of the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Benazir Bhutto succumbed to injuries in absence of timely medical treatment.

“Had she been shifted on time, we might have succeeded in saving her,” said a surgeon who operated upon her. Many accidental deaths occur only because there is no speedy evacuation system, he said.

Bisma’s father was refused entry to the hospital for VIP protocol of Bilawal whose mother had to shift to nearby Rawalpindi hospital only because there was no evacuation facility for transporting her to PIMS Islamabad and it was not possible to rush through hectic traffic.

This national tragedy passed without offering any education to the grieved family and the party that came into power through sympathy vote.

Instead of improving the health system, the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) where she breathed her last was named after her as well as Islamabad airport from where her body was flown to Naudero for burial.

Change in the name of hospital and airport is the only change her death brought that again signifies well-entrenched VIP culture in a country where not a street is named after an ordinary man with extraordinary contribution.

As luck is a relative term, Benazir was fortunate enough to have been received by a surgeon who had returned from abroad after learning skills of open chest cardiac massage, a last ditch effort to rescue the victim.

Team of doctors did that in vain as it had stopped working few minutes before reaching hospital. So she got the right doctor at wrong time.

Since there was nobody from the family around, the hospital administration rang to Edhi Foundation for the coffin arrangement that was immediately done and she was put on a stretcher having one wheel broken. “That was the best stretcher available,” said a doctor present there.

This kind of dysfunctional health system is in contrast with the spending billions on building metros and motorways. Investing on road infrastructure can’t be blamed as the sole reason of neglect. Sindh, bastion of PPP, doesn’t have any such road infrastructure nevertheless health system is worse than Punjab.

While Benazir has gone, the hospital named after her receives many cases of head injuries every day and several of them succumb to wounds only because they can’t be shifted to rather better-equipped hospitals due to traffic rush.

Probably Edhi Foundation is in possession of a heli ambulance; no hospital has this facility that may be used for the transportation of emergency patients.

Supplementary budgetary grants a couple of year ago revealed that Rs120 million was spent on the foreign medical treatment of 12 VIPs and incidentally all of them were rich enough to afford from their pockets but preferred public money that was readily sanctioned without regret. That money could have purchased 12 heli ambulances for the evacuation of emergency patients and transportation within Pakistan.

This situation is in contrast with the treatment a French-Pakistani women received from her adopted country. She fell terminally ill during her visit to Pakistan with faint chances of recovery even at the best medical facilities in Islamabad. 

She was unable to fly in a passenger plane but French doctors wanted her in Paris for treatment. Then an air-ambulance from France was sent to Islamabad for flying her free of cost.Recovery there took three years but the lady would have died had she stayed in Pakistan. She is an ordinary citizen but received extraordinary treatment in a country where state is mindful of its duties.

This may not be a relevant example and certainly is not in Pakistan where medical care is a matter of privilege.

Bilawal is neither the first nor will he be the last to cause death of common persons on account of security-cum-protocol.It is hard to list out all tragedies given the number of such incidents; almost all rulers have blood on their hands.

In 2006, a student died of a ruptured appendix while stuck in a traffic blockade in wait of then-President Musharraf to pass on.

A baby died in Lahore outside of Children Hospital when Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was on a visit. The PTI rally took life of a patient in Faisalabad when ambulance was caught in the rush.