Scalpel & chalk

LAHORE: The state that failed to govern its health and educational institutions cannot be expected to regulate the private sector.

It is because of deteriorated governance standards the state lost its grip over numerous affairs including health, education and social services. Without proper regulation and accountability, the private sector is fleecing the citizens in such a way that creditable educational and health services have gone out of reach of the poor. In fact these services are gradually becoming more common.

We cannot let this practice go unchecked otherwise the sharp inequalities currently visible in our society would become irreversible. We talk about merit now because there are numerous individuals in the system that are more capable of doing jobs handed over to favored ones. But the day is not far when the offspring of the rich would be selected purely on the basis of merit. Those that studied at expensive educational institutes would qualify on merit because the poor educated in dysfunctional government institutes would be no match for them. The superior services cadres do get persons from poor backgrounds inducted at high posts but after a few years they would stand no chance to compete with scions of wealthy families.

In the same way poor health facilities or no health care at all is making the poor weaker in body and brain. They cannot afford private health services. Their chances of joining armed forces as officers would diminish with time. We need an active civil society to reverse this trend. The current so-called civil society is composed mainly of the privileged class. They do not go against their compatriots. The normal media rarely goes against private businesses.

The social media is the only ray of hope. But the failed ‘Arab Spring’ was “managed” by the West through social media. In Pakistan’s case as well most of the social media bloggers promote political ideologies. We rarely see blogs on social subjects in the social media. The best thing about internet based blogs is that there is no entry bar. Any individual can post his/her blog on the different social media sites. The problem however is that there is no barometer except commonsense to check the authenticity of the media blogs. In Pakistan the social media is mostly in the hands of political parties. They have social media wings that air news in favor of the party they represent so they distort facts in favour of their party. The audience of social media gets confused when it sees so many divergent “facts” on the same subject posted by opposing political parties. This has hurt the credibility of social media as well. Even the reports of corruption and nepotism are taken by the public as planted by the opposing forces.

Victims of injustice rarely report their ordeal in the social media and if they do they are out-maneuvered by more vocal and resourceful vested interests. The government must realise the social media is the strongest and cheapest tool available to create fact-based awareness among the citizens.

The frauds and scandals highlighted and whistle-blowing on social media should be encouraged. Every individual using mobile internet should narrate his/her ordeal in social media instead of browsing entertainment sites. Fake news should be identified and discouraged. We need large-scale awareness at the national level about the bad and irregular practices in our society.

Serious vloggers must rally public opinion against such irregularities for example by highlighting the working routines of doctors of a particular government hospital ward. They should record the total operations performed in that surgical ward in a week. Each senior doctor in the government hospital ward performs at least 8 hours duty daily.

Then the operations supervised by the same senior doctors in different private clinics should also be documented. It would be invariably found that the number of major operations in government hospital wards would be many times less than those performed privately. Even the number of patients examined by a senior doctor at the outpatient ward of a government hospital is very low compared to the number of patients examined by them at their private clinics. This inhuman behavior ought to be highlighted frequently with proof to ensure better service delivery at the government hospitals. This is just one example. The same can be applied to every other department. If things are found in good health then it should also be highlighted to motivate the public servants.

The social media must also highlight the schools where children of Grade 18 and above government servants study, the fee structure of those schools, and the lifestyle of known tax evaders.