DENGUE

So while we're scrambling to get some kind of control on Aedes aegypti, some pertinent questions remain unanswered and important issues remain unaddressed.

1. Does our medical community really lack the intelligence and ability to understand the extent and severity of Dengue? Did we really have to bring in the Sri Lankans to tell us to clean up our piles of garbage?

2. Speaking of the abilities of our medical community, has anyone out there thought of collecting the data that is spilling over right into our laps? Is there any doctor out there visionary enough to understand that if the data is collected now it will prove beneficial for the next time?

3. The Khadim-e-Aala isn't much of a Khadim when he ends up running around AFTER the fact!


We needed to be in control of the situation BEFORE it happened. This wasn't the first year that Dengue occurred. We've been facing it for the past few years.....one would think that successive years would have taught us by now to be better equipped and prepared. However, only the opposite has taken place: despite having to face the Dengue fever each year, we are still ill-equipped and hardly prepared at all.


Running around now after a rising toll of deaths and trying to get a grip on the situation is proving to be a little too late. Even ONE death should have gotten us on our feet. And by that I mean, all the efforts that Khadim-e-Aala is putting in now should have been started long ago. In fact, even that ONE death should not have been allowed to occur. Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) is not a fatal illness and mortality is always less than 1%, according to WHO and CDC. Meaning, that if medical professionals are well-equipped and properly trained, and consequently patients are well-managed and promptly taken care of, then fatality is never a consequence.

What is worse, is that in the past few years this country has seen a volcanic surge in the establishment of medical colleges, with admissions going sky-high. We have formed an army of doctors, sans quality medical education, but nonetheless an entire force of doctors stands before us. Yet, a correlated rise in hospitals has not occurred. The ratio is totally off. Hence, the league of doctors graduating from these private medical colleges has no real future in front of them because there are no job opportunities, unless of course they have the means and choose to go abroad. But, if they stay here, then there is essentially nothing for them. And, as a result if they have no place to go to work then the rising population has fewer doctors who can attend to them, therefore inevitably the load falls upon the existing doctors and existing health facilities---which by now are super-saturated causing the entire healthcare system to choke. Primary and secondary level health facilities receive a bare minimum of patients, while the entire patient turn-over rate falls upon the tertiary level hospitals. Even in the present Dengue emergency, the tertiary care hospitals are bearing the brunt of it all, while secondary and primary care facilities remain practically empty.

I'm not sure who's behind all these health policies. I recently read that Dr. Fazeela Abbasi, the famous dermatologist, was appointed by Zardari as DG Health Projects. Then again, most of the officials in most of the top positions of our country are all hand-picked by Zardari. Yeah sure, she's got some good credentials and is travelling the world ever since her paper was accepted by European Academy of Dermatology, but the real question is how much knowledge of health policy do she have?? Just being a doctor doesn't qualify you for every medically related field! If this was the case, there wouldn't be a degree in public health! Her own website claims that she's "....played a significant role in strengthening the health system in the Federal Ministry of health...." Umm, where is the "strengthened health system"?? Can you show me?....Anyone?


1. Bottomline is, our country lacks substantial health policy and infrastructure.

2. Our goverment is the first and foremost to blame for this, because this mess begins with them: if the government woud allocate a sensible budget towards healthcare, only then will the healthcare policies and planning come into implementation. Without proper financial means, all the planning in the world is useless.

3. We have a total failure of developing individuals among the medical community who can bring in the vision to improve our healthcare. In short, we lack visionary doctors.

4. We don't need an army of doctors. If it were up to me, I'd stop with immediate effect all admissions into medical colleges around the country, and instead work on improving the quality of medical education and training of the existing doctors.

5. Dengue in and of itself is not an emergency. Rather, it's our lack of preparedness that has pushed us into this position. We are still capable of putting a dent into the rising cases of Dengue fever.

6. Mainly we need to work on our general cleanliness around the city and be proactive on all the preventive measures, because that is the only way we can repel Aedes aegypti.d  significant role in strengthening the health system in the Federal Ministry of health

Pakistan vs. India

So while the country gears up for what is considered to be the biggest showdown in Cricket World Cup history since 1992, it's necessary to put some things in perspective.


Don't get me wrong. I like sports. May be not cricket so much, but I am looking forward to the semi-final.


Nearly every channel is spewing forth its share of hype build-up by plunging us into an endless on-slaught of clips and footage intended to inspire within us a burning passion of patriotism. It is the most talked about topic on every talk show, and anyone who feels able enough to put in their 2 cents, is. Even the politicians have joined in....but then again they never had anything substantial to talk about, so this works out just fine for them (by the way Haider Abbas Rizvi you can't sing buddy). And there's no escape from it. If you think you can take a breather by switching off the TV, then you're out of luck, cuz then there's the newspaper, and then there's the incessant beeping of your in-coming text messages reminding you to pray and recite everything and anything you can to channelize divine intervention on the fateful day, and then there's all the cricket-oriented advertising from shoe stores to restaurants serving all kinds of fast foods named after each of the 11 cricketers, and if you think you can avoid all this..........then think yet again!!! Because then there's your next door neighbor, your children, your children's friends, your own friends, the people at work, your kaam wali, your milk man, your driver, your paper boy reminding you to read the paper, right down to the random guy you glanced at for 2 seconds while paying your grocery bill. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE IT! 


So, everything in Pakistan right now is breathing, sleeping, and eating cricket. Might as well get used to it. Of course, let's not leave out the musician community, which is basically what I'm heading towards. Everyone's come out of their slumber and comfy confines, and put their voices to work and released some interesting songs. But, the idiocy of it is (yes, it is idiotic) when you are SINGING PATRIOTIC SONGS SUNG BY INDIANS FOR THE INDIAN CRICKET TEAM!!!!  


Yeah I know ''De Ghuma Ke'' is the official World Cup song, but as a patriotic Pakistani, do you really want to be singing along? I mean, really! Do you? 


Stick to your guns for once! Just this once can we leave aside our pathetic and inexplicable fascination and infatuation for all things Indian, and fall back on our own potential and talent? We will do just fine once we realize that we are also cool. Rather, just as cool and then more! Why must we become the kid with the low self-esteem who yearns to fit in with the popular clique?


Wake up Pakistanis! You're holding the green flag.....make it count! Be a true Pakistani!

Are we still kissing the gora sahib's shoes?

Who Comes Up With These Crazy Decisions?

Seriously. Someone please tell me. The government's latest stint to save "face" has hurled it into a chaotic frenzy of ineffective and bleary decision-making. Instead it should be hurled into a sanitorium, but we'll save that discussion for another day.

"Right-sizing", as they call it, is the politically correct term for down-sizing. Unfortunately, there's nothing "right" about any of Zardari's decisions....or are they Gillani's? Either way, the solutions they've derived are irresponsible and incoherent. Nevertheless, the big-wigs in Islamabad remain placid to the outcome. The result of these counterproductive decisions can and will gravely affect the lives of every Pakistani....that is to say whatever is left of it. Case in point: the ministry of health.

The federal government has decided to allocate much of the responsibility to the individual provinces. Specifically, the pharmaceutical industry is the first and foremost to be affected. In light of this mandate, each province will be responsible for authorizing the production and sale of drugs within their own respective provinces. Once a pharmaceutical company receives approval for their drug from the provincial ministry of health, it will then have to travel to the remaining four provinces to inform these other provinces about the production of their drugs and also seek approval from them. This will not only make the entire process tedious and laborious, but also presents a number of problems, some of which are as follows:-

1. Standardization, in general, will be considerably affected. The importance and significance of one central governing body which used to ensure that all drugs produced and sold within the country are of optimum quality and standard, will now be discontinued. As a result, the quality of these drugs can no longer be guaranteed. In other words, each province will have their own set of standards, and these standards will inevitably differ from province to province. Such variations will inadvertently affect the production quality of these medicines.

2. Trade names might over-lap. For example, if one company in Punjab names their drug a specific name and indicates it for the use of heart disease, another company in Balochistan can have the same name for their drug but indicate it for the use of asthma. This can easily happen as a result of the discontinuation of a central governing body which used to raise the red flag and sound alarms when such over-laps and discrepancies occured. Consequently, this sort of over-lap will profoundly confuse consumers, and can lead to dangerous and fatal consequences.

3. Cost of medicines will vary significantly from province to province. After all, the pharmaceutical company has to find some way to compensate themselves for all the travelling their employees will do when engaging in the meticulous process of informing other provinces and finalizing approval of their drugs. As a result, the consumers will be targeted to provide the respite to these pharmaceutical companies. This will also lead to the development of another menace--variations in price will easily compel people to smuggle medicines from provinces selling drugs at a low price, giving way to a parallel business that will inescapably be marred with tainting and adulteration of these medicines.

Human lives are at stake, and our federal government is complacent. But, then again this is the kind of governance that can be expected from uneducated, avaricious, and iniquitous leaders.  

I LIKE JULIA CHILD

It's been a long hiatus, for reasons that I will discuss later, but I'm back! And it's good to be back. Not sure who reads this, and if at all anyone reads this. Hopefully someone does. :-) And thank you to those who do!

I've discovered Julia Child. Yes, the chef. Although I've known about her for years, but recently discovered some interesting things about her. At a height of 6'2'' she was a determined woman; not one to give up easily. She worked hard with unwavering focus and strength. Of course, much of her mental strength can be attributed to her physical fitness from playing tennis, basketball, and golf in high school and college. But, what intrigued me the most about Julia was her resolve and resilience. Her ability to forge ahead despite all kinds of hurdles isn't just admirable, but in fact a contagious virus that has me in its grip for the last few days.

Whether it was an assignment as a secret researcher in the OSS or learning to chop onions when she first joined Le Cordon Bleu--each task continuously emboldend her and pushed her to the farthest limits where she ended up realizing her potential. 

They say persistence and determination is the key to success. And in Julia's case this was especially the case--nothing deterred her. She took on each challenge with alacrity and embraced it fearlessly. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that she was able to write a 734-page cooking book on French cuisine, which has now become a seminal culinary work even though Houghton Mifflin said it was an encyclopedia and refused to publish it.

Her personality is extremely inspiring and has provoked me to change the way I handle certain aspects of my own life. Julia's confidence never dissipated, and so I take her demeanor which exudes with self-possession as guidance and march ahead chin up and ready to take on whatever comes my way!

Ramsay the Pharaoh?

Not an avid follower of Hell's Kitchen, but shouldn't something be done about Gordon Ramsay? I don't know how much he contributes to the demise of the chefs who've committed suicide after appearing on his show, but seems like he really knows how to drive in the last nail.

Rachel Brown shot herself last year and now Joseph Cerniglia jumped off a bridge.

Not quite sure what's cooking inside that kitchen....but Ramsay is doing one hell of a job pushing people to the edge.

If you spent this Ramadan in its true spirit by fasting and more importantly immersing yourself in intensified prayer and personal reflection----you will have most probably felt by the end of the month refreshed and over-hauled, and if you were extremely fortunate then you would have also felt stripped clean of all the muck that had heaped up inside.

In case you had 30 minutes to spare perhaps on one of these days, then may be you were able to watch a girl called Mariam on Dawn TV getting blasted for not wearing a dupatta on her head during a show which was a question and answer session dealing with the topic of Islam.

She got hit from left, right, and center. They came at her from all sides! How on earth could she sit there day after day without a dupatta! "Get her to realize what Islam is, and then preach to the rest of us!!!" said one furious caller. The fury and comments just swelled with each passing day. But Mariam didn't cover her head. She remained staunch in her stance, and the callers unwavered in their views.

Should Mariam have followed the usual decorum such programs demand? Perhaps. Then why didn't she? May be because she felt that if she had to cover her head then it should be based on a decision of inherently wanting to do it for Allah and not for a bunch of people who were telling her to do it. The problem with this justification is that it only works for Mariam, and not for the rest of the people who felt she was committing a huge blunder. But then again, Mariam wasn't really interested in pleasing people and pacifying them---she was sticking to her guns. Her unwillingness to budge and acquiesce was not her problem----it was ours. But why?

Why were so many of the callers and others watching the show perturbed by her not covering her head? What difference would it make to them if she did or didn't?

It seemed people's agitation emerged from the idea that since she is a Muslim to begin with then why couldn't she adhere to Islamic values? The answer is how many of us are adhering to Islamic values? So Mariam wasn't covering her head.....if you look around most of us don't wear hijabs. Most of us can't even claim to be good practicing Muslims. So then how are we able to point fingers at her?

This isn't to defend Mariam. But rather we need to start realizing what the status quo is. Over the last several years we have evolved into a society that has gradually become far removed from Islamic values. May be that's why we're so obsessed about religion these days----because we've lost religion. So when a girl shows up on a TV channel co-hosting a show about Islam and isn't wearing hijab, that should come as no surprise because we essentially have reached a point where such issues have lost significance. We have forgotten what is right and wrong.....we no longer know what is in-line and out of line. We have back-pedalled to the point where we need to once again re-learn what Islam is and what it teaches us. And, so as a result of our own faults, short-comings, and carelessness we stand confused, lost, and incapable of adhering to "Islamic values". Rather than point fingers and brand each other with pejorative statements, we must endure this "re-learning" with civility and tolerance. And there is no harm in doing this. One only hopes that this repeat expedition will this time around bring us to the right destination. Until then, Mariam and others like her are trying to learn-----so let them.

Pakistan's embassy in the U.K. tried to downplay the expense of the trip, saying in a press release that the president was cutting costs by staying "in the cheapest five-star hotel in central London," and downgrading from a "royal suite" to "a relatively cheaper suite."

(http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/anger-swells-in-flood-hit-pakistan-over-presidents-foreign-trip/19580814)

How considerate of you Mr. President!