Public hospitals are inadequate due to lack of basic facilities. The problems include power failures, non-functional washrooms, dirty wards and incompetent paramedical staff. Some public hospitals have employed unqualified medical practitioners holding fake degrees. Doctors are often found smoking in hospitals, even in the intensive care units. Stray cats roam the hospitals as if in a fish market. Ugly patches and spots of fungi on walls, garbage heaps lying in open, debris lining the corners is what we see everywhere. Most doctors are running their private clinics besides. Rather than pay attention to patients in public hospitals, they offer to see them at their private clinics, where they are able to be more attentive and charge a hefty fee too for being so. I appeal to the authorities to provide better facilities in public hospitals so that the poor could be provided at least the basic healthcare. -MARIA GUL, Karachi University, September 29.