Category Archives: Health

Give the gift of life

Health, Organ Trade and Donation, SIUT, The SIUT Story

By Zubeida Mustafa

HAS the illicit organ trade that gave Pakistan such a bad name in the world of medicine made a comeback? We do know that for about a year after the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act was adopted in 2010 there was a lull and we were celebrating the end of this crime against humanity in our country. But one cannot be sure about that now.

Today reports trickle in that the clandestine sale of human organs is thriving. The scale of the operation is not known but the exploitation of the poor remains unabated.

With such a reputation, it was not really surprising when five days after the bombing of the All Saints Church in Peshawar last month, a website, Agenzia Fides, that has been described as the news agency of the Vatican, carried a shocking report linking the incident with the problem of organ trafficking. Continue reading Give the gift of life →

Pakistan’s social development: the Christians’ role

Children and Youth, Education, Guest Contributor, Health, Minorities, Social Issues

By Amna Pathan
Guest Contribution

imgWe are all aware of how much the Christian community has done for Pakistan. It has established schools such as ours – the St Joseph’s Convent — all over the country. Hospitals, orphanages, trust funds, even entire villages were founded by the Christians as early as the late nineteenth century.

The Church of England established the Karachi Grammar School in 1847. Thomas French, the first bishop of Lahore, founded the Agra College in 1853. Three years later, The Convent of Jesus and Mary was set up in Sialkot.  In 1861 the St. Patrick’s High School and in 1862 the St. Joseph’s Convent School were established. These were the first of many schools and universities set up by the Christians, who, for the last 160 years have been educating people all over Pakistan. Their students, have in turn, grown up to educate others and spread their teachings. These missionary schools have moulded lives, and that in turn have shaped our country’s history and its future.

Continue reading Pakistan’s social development: the Christians’ role →

In service of humanity

Book Reviews, Books by ZM, Guest Contributor, Health, Social Issues, The SIUT Story

By Asif Noorani

The success story of the SIUT (Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation), starting on a modest scale and growing into a state-of-the-art medical and surgical hospital with impressive research and training facilities, gives you the feeling that all is not lost with this country. It is heartening that here is a government institution, run by a qualified and well-trained team of inspired and dedicated personnel, which offers free treatment to thousands of poor patients. What is more, they are all treated with the respect and dignity they deserve and are made to feel that medical treatment is their birth right.

The SIUT and its journey is documented by Zubeida Mustafa in the coffee table book, The SIUT Story: Making the ‘Impossible’ Possible. During the research for the book, Mustafa spoke not just with medical practitioners but also with kidney donors and many patients who have been treated successfully. With donations and help in cash and kind flowing from individuals and corporate bodies who have trust in the integrity and capability of the people running the institution, not many plans had to be dropped owing to lack of finances. Continue reading In service of humanity →

Fabricating history

Education, Health, History, Organ Trade and Donation, SIUT

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE SIUT’s Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) holds interesting forums periodically where renowned scholars are invited to address the members. Since ethics is a wide-ranging subject the thought-provoking speeches on a variety of subjects delivered there provide the audience some issues to chew upon.

In July, Dr Arifa Syeda Zahra, who teaches history in a Lahore college, was a guest of the CBEC and the point she drove home very forcefully and convincingly was that those who destroy history do it with the purpose of erasing the collective memory of a people. The idea behind this act of vandalism is to pre-empt change, which Dr Arifa Zahra describes as the most difficult process in individuals and societies. Continue reading Fabricating history →

Who shapes health policies?

Children and Youth, Health, Population, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN a country where policies are formulated in an ad hoc fashion and are designed to promote the interests of a vested class rather than of the people as a whole, it is creditable that there are researchers trying to inject some rationality into the decision-making process.

That is how I see the move by the Research and Development Solutions, an organisation working on collecting information, analysing it and sharing it with concerned parties. ResDev’s focus is on health, specifically maternal and reproductive health and immunisation. Above all, the research is done professionally under the director Dr Adnan Khan.

And who would deny that our health policy making leaves a lot to be desired? With a measly 0.7pc of GDP being assigned for the health sector in the official budget, Pakistanis end up incurring the heaviest out-of-pocket expenditure on health in South Asia. It does leave one wondering as to how policies are made.

ResDev’s latest research promises to be an innovative one and might prove to be very revealing as well. Continue reading Who shapes health policies? →