The heatwave that has plagued Karachi and other parts of Sindh has brought enormous suffering to this country. In this day and age, you almost have to pinch yourself to believe that something of this magnitude, and on this scale, could happen.

There were no waves crashing through homes or fires raging through a city. It was just extreme heat and no human being should have to die, in this day and age, because of a heatwave. The reaction of those responsible for the welfare of the people has not helped matters.

And yet, the death toll reminds us of a deeper malaise: failure to prioritise issues that affect the bulk of the population of this country.

No government, federal or provincial, can ever be held responsible for the summer heat. But where the federal and provincial governments have failed miserably concerns their ability to assess and respond to a situation that demanded to be treated like a crisis. The failure is in the planning: this applies as much to long-term planning for healthcare and public emergencies as well as planning, or lack thereof, for the public relations exercise involved.

The solution to this problem does not lie in criticising politicians for the short-term. It requires getting the long-term balance right. Now, it is easy to lay all the blame on the government of Sindh -- but it is my contention that the government of Sindh’s failure, as serious as it may be, is not half as grave as the real problem.

Healthcare is not a priority in this country. This is reflected in the ridiculously low budget allocated to it at the federal and provincial levels. The civil-military imbalance is important here again -- as is the misplaced focus on large-scale projects without providing basic security of health to the population at large.

Most of the time the skewed nature of our priorities gets ignored. The rich have broken free of the state. They can survive without it. They have their own private schools, their private hospitals and their own security arrangements. Most of the time the poor and destitute in this country suffer in silence. Every hour, every day, the poor and vulnerable in Pakistan suffer or die because we never thought it fit to allocate enough money for their healthcare. But most of the time the numbers of those dying are so small that lack of priorities, coupled with medical negligence or sheer unavailability of medical facilities, does not make the news.

The lack of attention to healthcare and emergency measures surrounding it also, mostly, gets ignored during terror attacks. The sheer fear and panic of a terror attack closes most minds to the question of "how many could we have saved with effective healthcare?"

And then a heatwave hits.

It too is able to discriminate between the rich and the poor -- the ones with generators and airconditioners have it safe. After all, someone needs to power up their laptops and smart phones to blame those stupid politicians. Calling for an overhaul of our budgetary priorities, questioning the civil-military imbalance in spending, paying more taxes, treating our industrial, commercial and domestic workers better can all wait.

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The hundreds who have died in Karachi could have been saved. And all of us could have done more to save them. But most of us decide that if we can break free from reliance on the state then so be it. Money can buy what democracy cannot provide -- at least not at the speed at which it is required.

Of course, Karachi has other serious problems: far too much concrete, not enough trees, not enough water. But this all ties in with our skewed priorities and the decision, by most of us, to live independent of the majority in this country and their suffering. Had we allocated enough money to our healthcare system, with an eye on necessity for effective emergency response, we could have saved more lives. Yes, the politicians did take time to grasp the gravity of the situation. And yes, their failure to come across as empathetic in public statements makes them appear far more guilty than they probably are. But also painfully evident was the sheer lack of capacity of a system.

As dead bodies piled up, the morgues and even the graveyards ran out of space. There were not enough ambulances, not enough doctors, not enough water. That is not the failure of the Government of Sindh. That is an abject failure of the state and its priorities. That is damning evidence of a society where the rich feel better through volunteer work after a heat wave turns into a calamity -- yet the rich and powerful will probably never question why a heat wave should have turned into a calamity in the first place?

Look at any sector and you will see that when the rich and powerful care about an issue they form pressure groups and they make things happen. The budget, ironically enough, every year is a classic example of this. When they do not agree with a decision, business houses, chambers of commerce, mighty individuals push back and get things reformed or extract concrete commitments from the state. But healthcare, and emergency healthcare, is something that allows us to be cozy in our little worlds.

One can only hope that the tragic deaths in Karachi will cause us all to re-examine our contribution to this society. Contributions should not be limited to limiting the effects of a tragedy -- real contributions in societies prevent tragedies.

Many experts have said that even with power outages this tragedy should not have happened. And that sounds plausible. However, the fact that K-electric is privatised also works in a skewed manner for the vulnerable. The fact that areas where bill recoveries are high get more electricity might ensure efficiency but it also hints at the basic problem of the free-market: the free-market tells us everything there is to know about efficiency and it tells us nothing, absolutely nothing, about fair and just distribution. That is where the state must step in and plan effectively.

The tragedy in Karachi and Sindh did not happen in a vacuum. By realising that the state and its most affluent and powerful citizens are directly responsible for it, we will do a real service to our democracy -- and its most vulnerable.