I want to draw the attention of the concerned authorities to the problem of absence of doctors and maltreatment of patients in rural areas. Though the Government claims that it is trying to improve health facilities in the rural areas and they claim that they have opened many dispensaries and basic health units, there are no doctors available. The doctors are posted to these areas but they don’t actually go or practice, they just take the salaries leaving villagers at the mercy of quacks. In fact these doctors are son and daughters of rich people and they do not bother about their profession. If some of them go to their duties, they treat their patients as low human beings.
I request you to take steps to improve the situation, there should be a system of check and balance and absent doctors should be dismissed, care should be taken that local doctors are appointed in the rural areas. Doctors serving in rural areas should be given extra facilities and a higher pay than doctors serving in large cities. I request all doctors to respect humans and treat them kindly as only the sick and needy go to a doctor and look up at him like a messiah! Doctors are there to serve humanity, but they lose this sense during their time in hospitals and start treating patients as money making machines.
FARIYA AZHAR,
Karachi, April 24.