Category Archives: Social Issues

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 →

Women power at work

Administration, Archive Edition, Development and Poverty, Environment, Health, Housing, Social Issues, Women

By Onlooker

Ravaged by rains, overflowing sewers and digging by . civic agencies, the approach road to the Karachi Administration Society (adjacent to the PECHS) had been in a state of battered neglect for months.

No one came to attend to it when the post-monsoon road mending work was taken in hand all over the city in August.

Quite belatedly at the end of October, this heavily used stretch of road was put into good shape. Few are aware of the formidable ‘women power’. that went into its repair.

37-02-12-1988But the Councillor of the area, the KMC, the ZMC and other agencies concerned know better. They have found it impossible to ignore the forty or so women who have periodically visited their offices demanding what they insist is their right as tax-payers. They call themselves the Karachi Administration Women Welfare Society. Continue reading Women power at work →

An unconventional calling

Archive Edition, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Housing, Notable Personalities, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

Way back in 1974, when Khushi Kabir first went to Vnandapur, a remote village in Sylhet, to do relief and rehabilitation work for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), it was a new experience for her.

Previously   her work had been restricted to the village on the outs- kirts of Dhaka. Anandapur took her away from her home and family, Living among the peasants and interacting with them, Khushi developed a new approach to life. She gradually shed off her inhibitions and values imbibed from her middle class background (her father was Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Information in United Pakistan). She was soon to discover the fulfilment of working with the downtrodden.

Continue reading An unconventional calling →

Population growth: Strategy for 7th Plan raises questions

Archive Edition, Economy, Health, Population, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE PROPSALS that the Population Welfare Division has submitted for the Seventh Five-Year Plan make incongruous reading.

The first 45 pages are a candid admission of failure: the government could not meet any of the population targets of the Sixth Plan. Yet the goals spelt out for the Seventh Plan are even more ambitious than the previous ones which proved unattainable,

In the Sixth Plan period, not much headway has been made in the demographic sector. The Plan had aimed at increasing the level of acceptors from 9.5 per cent in 1983 to 18.6 per cent in 1988. But according to the Population Division’s report family planning practice actually fell to 9.15 per cent in 1987. Continue reading Population growth: Strategy for 7th Plan raises questions →

Budget and education:  Shortfall in outlay despite Iqra and other incomes                                                   

Archive Edition, Economy, Education, Human Rights, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

 WHILE the federal and provincial budgets announced in June have shown an increase in the allocations for the education sector as in previous years the government has failed to display the political will, social commitment and economic capacity to promote education sufficiently in a country where 74 per cent of the population is illiterate.The fact is that, increase in funds notwithstanding, Pakistan is still a long way from the goals the framers of the Sixth Five-Year Plan had laid down in 1983, which would have boosted literacy to 48 per cent and primary school enrolment ratio to 75 per cent. Continue reading Budget and education:  Shortfall in outlay despite Iqra and other incomes                                                    →