Category Archives: Health

A try at self-management

Archive Edition, Book Reviews, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

HOUSE BUILDING BY LOWINCOME FAMILIES IN ORANGI by Akhter Hameed Khan. Published by Orangi Pilot Project, 1-D/ 26 Doulat House, Orangi Town, Karachi. Tel: 618628. 1990. 19 pp. Price not given.

ORANGI PILOT PROJECT MODELS by Akhter Hameed Khan. OPP, Karachi. 1990. 33pp.

A SURVEY OF ORANGI SCHOOLS. OPP, Karachi. 1990. 20 pp.

WOMEN WORK CENTRES STORY OF FIVE YEARS 1984-1989 by Akhter Hameed Khan. OPP, Karachi. 1989. 48 pp.

50-16-11-1990Eliminating poverty is one of the major challenges in all Third World countries. The conventional approach has been to get governments and social welfare agencies to assign funds and manpower to develop basic facilities for health, education and housing for lowincome families.

Needless to say this strategy has failed because of the paucity of resources and lack of involvement of the community.

In this context, the approach to development adopted by Dr Akhter Hameed Khan in Orangi — patterned after his Comilla project — is not only innovative. It has proved to be feasible and enduring. Since 1980, when the OPP was founded with the sponsorship of the BCCI, it has succeeded as a focus for self-mobilisation of the people of Orangi. Continue reading A try at self-management →

Transplantation of kidney: Indian professor’s views

Archive Edition, Development and Poverty, Health, Organ Trade and Donation, Organ Transplant, SIUT, Social Issues

By Our Special Correspondent

KARACHI, March 23: While condemning the unethical practices associated with kidney transplantation from unrelated living donors. Prof Kirpal Singh Chugh made a fervent appeal to the medical profession to spread the message to the public for the need for cadaveric transplantation of organs.

Dr.chughHe was speaking on the “Ethics of Transplantation” at a symposium organised at a local hotel on Friday. Dr Chugh, who is the Professor of Nephrology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, was in Karachi to attend the Dow Medical College Annual Symposium on March 20-22. Continue reading Transplantation of kidney: Indian professor’s views →

High population growth rate, low status of women: Perfect recipe for Demographic Disaster

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Population, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

44-14-07-1989Pakistan is heading for a demographic disaster. And if we need to be reminded of it,, the recently published report of the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) in Islamabad should serve the purpose. It very bluntly states the implications of a runaway population growth rate for the socio-economic development of the country.

The State of Population in Pakistan graphically describes the impact of a high population growth rate (2.8 – 3.1 per cent by current guesstimate) on various sectors in the last four decades. It also projects future growth at a constant rate and how it will affect the socio-economic situation in the year 2000. In mid-1987 Pakistan’s population was estimated to be 102 million. At the turn of the century it will be 150 million if it continues to grow at the rate of 2.8 per cent per annum. Continue reading High population growth rate, low status of women: Perfect recipe for Demographic Disaster →

I was determined to live — and live normally

Archive Edition, Health, Human Rights, Organ Trade and Donation, Organ Transplant, SIUT, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

Dr Rukhsana Parveen is a Senior House Officer in the Nawabshah Civil Hospital. Her job in the 73- bed medical ward is considerably demanding entailing as it does six hours of morning duty every day and four emergency duties a week — twice in the afternoon and twice at night.

For 27-year-old Rukhsana, her work as a physician is most satisfying. She speaks enthusiastically about her profession, narrating animatedly her experiences with her patients. She is proud of her achievements: in the last few weeks she has cured six patients suffering, from the deadly disease Hepatitis-B. Continue reading I was determined to live — and live normally →

Helpful donors come to the rescue

Archive Edition, Health, Human Rights, Organ Trade and Donation, Organ Transplant, SIUT, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

When ‘ the first kidney transplant operation was performed at the Civil Hospital, Karachi, on November 20, 1985, few expected it to be more than a rare surgical feat accomplished once in a blue moon. After all, the obstacles to be surmounted were several, the most significant being financial constraints. Could a hospital in the public sector with a limited budget, sustain a programme which cost Rs 140,000 to provide postoperative care and drugs to one patient for one year?

40-10-03-1989-AThere were other limiting factors as well. Even though the availability of surgical skill could be taken for granted, without an infrastructure of specialised nursing, extensive dialysis services and laboratory facilities, kidney transplant surgery could not be made routine. At that time arrangements did not even exist in the country for tissue matching, the first prerequisite for a transplant operation, and blood samples had to be sent abroad for this purpose.

Then there was the question of social acceptance of an idea that was quite radical for a society where life and death have a religious sanctity about them and are not. to be tampered with. Would donors be readily available and how would the people react to the concept of cadaveric donation, which has to be the ultimate endeavour of a transplant programme. Continue reading Helpful donors come to the rescue →