HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court’s Hyderabad circuit bench has directed the Tharparkar sessions judge to depute a magistrate who will inspect hospitals within the district and prepare a comprehensive report with regard to the availability or otherwise of medical officers and treatment facilities to patients. The report should reach the court within 15 days, it said and adjourned the matter till Nov 17.

A division bench comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Mohammad Iqbal Maher was seized with a petition filed by Advocate Kanji Mal, who appeared before the bench in person on Thursday to plead the case. He has cited the health secretary, provincial health services director general, Tharparkar health officer and others as respondents.

The petitioner submitted that for the last three-four years, Tharparkar district had been witnessing unabated deaths of newborns and the toll was rising. He said the Supreme Court had also taken suo motu notice of the situation. It seemed that this district was not a priority of the federal and provincial governments.

Advocate Mal further submitted that recent media reports suggested a deadly famine having hit Tharparkar and attributed the increasing deaths to malnutrition. He said the health facilities in the district lacked adequate quantity of medicines and number of equipment to deal with the issue.

The current crisis, he claimed, was caused by maladministration and mismanagement on the part of the federal, provincial and district authorities.

The bench was informed that [over 1.5 million] people of Thar mainly depended on farming during rains but drought had badly affected the sector. Livestock rearing is their other major livelihood with an estimated 6.5 million cattle head present in the district. Inadequate rainfall coupled with a lack of food and health facilities for the people and their animals had badly been affecting both livelihoods over the past few years.

The petitioner stated that infant mortality had been on the rise over the last three-four years and among the reason were unavailability of medical officers and proper treatment facilities to the people. He said that in the Nangarparkar taluka hospital, only four doctors out of 32 sanctioned posts were made available. He further stated that the health situation across the district was alarming and patients were referred to one hospital from another and also advised to go to private laboratories for various medical examinations due to unavailability of doctors and technical staff at government hospitals.

The petitioner stated that despite an emergency-like situation, no action was being taken by respondents against ‘ghost’ doctors and those who had proceeded on long leave.

He said that the Sindh government had announced a plan to set up a teaching hospital and college in Mithi but there was no progress so far in the implementation of the plan.

He prayed to court to declare the current crisis absence of good governance and appoint a commissioner to visit government hospitals and health facilities to ascertain the conditions prevailing there.

The petitioner also prayed to court to direct the chief secretary to initiate an inquiry into the human disaster being caused by negligence, apathy and corruption.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2016