Pakistan Peoples Party leader Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari on March 4th, at her party’s antigovernment march, was hit by a drone camera in Khanewal. The video of the incident aired on all tv channels and showed Aseefa Bhutto, who was standing atop a container, lurch backward in an attempt to dodge the incoming drone, which apparently struck her head.
The drone was being used to give coverage of the march, which started on the 27th from Karachi (Mazar-e-Quaid) towards Islamabad against the rising inflation and other policies of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf. The march was expected to reach the capital by March 7th after passing through 23 districts and addressing rallies in 34 urban city centers. Following the incident, delays are expected.
Following the incident rescue 1122 team and the on-duty doctor, Doctor Babar, stationed next to the container, immediately went inside and checked up on Aseefa Bhutto, who had sustained a minor cut next to her eyebrow and bruises on her hand.
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The security officers immediately got hold of the drone, and upon inquiry, it was found out that it belonged to a media house. However, whether the drone camera hitting the PPP leader was an accident, or a deliberate act is still unclear.
The chairperson of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto, confirmed that his sister was in fact well and recovering and that she had left the hospital with only “several stitches on deep lacerations.”
Soon after, Aseefa Bhutto, in a tweet, thanked everyone for their well wishes and said that she was “deeply indebted to the paramedics at 1122 station Khaniwal, Ms Zunaira & Mr Baber for their stellar & immediate first aid” she further added that she “would also like to thank the local police for rushing me to Mukhtar Sheikh Hospital Multan”.
In response to all the concern & calls,re @AseefaBZ she has finally left hospital with several stitches on deep lacerations caused by the drone that hit her straight in the face on top of our #AwamiMarch lead truck.The wounds will take some time to heal,but she is now recovering.
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) March 4, 2022
However, skeptics soon took to her tweet and criticized the lapses in Sindh’s healthcare system and the dire need for structural reform in the province. One certain twitter handler said that “Thank U Aseefa Zardari for highlighting excellent performance of Rescue 1122, Punjab Police & hospital. I hope, you will learn from this experience and will give same facilities to Sindh.”
Sindh’s weak health care system exposed
It is pertinent to mention that on the same day when Aseefa Bhutto was struck by the drone camera and rushed to the hospital, dailytimes cited a report by a private channel that reported a shortage of ventilators in government hospitals in Sindh’s Mirpukhas and Hyderabad divisions which was claiming dozens of lives every month.
Public sector hospitals in 10 out of 12 districts of the two divisions are without ventilators. “Newborns who need support breathing are referred to the Karachi (NICH) hospital”, NICH head doctor Nasir Saleem said. But many of the newborns referred to the NICH hospital die before arriving.
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The Sindh government’s tall claims about an improved healthcare system were exposed by a recent report by Ombudsman, which cited “deficient healthcare infrastructure and manpower” in the province. The report further added that in 2020 no new public sector hospitals were added in Karachi, a city with over 20 million population.
Addressing the claim by the PPP, the report added that despite being publicized as a free service provider, public hospitals in Sindh were still charging pay money, and the public was paying out of their pockets. Lastly, the report revealed that no record is available of the nature of patients and the mortality rates in Sindh.
It is also important to note that with the start of 2022, Thar, Sindh’s largest district, recorded 34 child deaths in just one month. According to a report compiled by the Sindh Healthcare Commission, the province only has 41,082 beds in 7,651 healthcare facilities, against a population of roughly 47.8 million.
Just a simple mathematical equation reveals that the province has only one hospital bed for around 1,200 people, half of what is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).
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In the most recent development, a measles outbreak in Sindh claimed the lives of 70 children in just a span of two months, a senior pediatrician at the Pakistan Pediatric Association revealed. Furthermore, malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions instigate the problem even more. In the province of Sindh, the numbers of stunted children reach a worrying 50 percent.
Bilawal Bhutto, addressing the concern regarding Sindh’s healthcare, said that “the PPP’s Sindh government has revolutionized the healthcare system in the province, and the party wishes to ensure that people from the entire country have full access to free-of-charge healthcare facilities.”