Every year we come across the budget exercise at federal and provincial levels with the hope that the budget of that year will improve the living standards of people in the country. Unfortunately, hopes are yet to be translated into reality.

Let’s talk of Sindh here. While budget statistics keep increasing every year, we have not seen any significant improvement in the socio-economic situation of the people of Sindh. We have witnessed tall claims of reducing poverty and increasing budgetary allocations for health and education.

The government of the day takes credit for passing huge number of ‘important’ laws, etc. Unfortunately, the ground realities are contrary to the tall claims. Let’s take the health department. As per reports, so far 851 persons have tested positive for AIDS/HIV in Talluka Ratodero near Larkana. Of them, 52% are male and 48% female and most of the affectees are children between the ages two to five years.

A total of 62 children under one year, 480 children between two and five years and 158 between six and 15 years have tested positive. It put the number of HIV-positive individuals aged 15-45 at 128, and that of 46 years and older at 22.

The World Health Organisation has declared the HIV outbreak in Ratodero a “Grade 2 Emergency” and noted “an inadequate stock of antiretroviral therapy (ART) medicines has emerged as the major challenge”.

Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has announced endowment fund of Rs1 billion for the welfare of HIV/AIDS infected persons during financial year 2019-20. Nonetheless, the root cause of the bulk of the problems in Sindh lies in taking action after the incident has occurred as the CM has announced the endowment fund once the situation has turned scary. The same amount could have been utilised for preventing such a deadly disease.

It would then definitely have saved thousands of families whose loved ones are suffering from such a serious illness. Furthermore, a report on the website of the Sindh Bureau of Statistics title “Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2014” claims 48% stunting in Sindh — highest in Umerkot and Tharparkar at 66% and 63% respectively.

The CM in his last budget speech claimed to “reduce stunting from 48% to 30% by 2021 and then 15% by 2026.” Ironically, the budget speech of fiscal year 2017-18 carries similar claims of “reducing stunting rate from existing 48% to 30% in next five years”. That means the stunting rate has remained stagnant since 2014.

How can then this daunting task of reducing stunting to 30% be achieved within two years? It seems stunting statistics will remain static. The Bureau’s website carries even more shocking statistics. According to the “Health Profile of Sindh 2016”, doctor to population ratio in Sindh is 3,159; population served by per nurse ratio is 12,411; and one bed is available in Sindh for 1,455 persons.

To further add insult to injury, the Sindh Healthcare Commission Act, 2013 empowers the commission to improve the quality of healthcare services and clinical governance and to ban quackery.

Recently, Dr Ghafoor Shoro of the Pakistan Medical Association, while speaking at a seminar “Quackery in Sindh”, revealed that there are around 150,000 to 200,000 quacks in Sindh, of whom 80,000 are based in Karachi. That is a very serious problem and also a cause of the recent HIV/AIDS epidemic in the province.

It is time to translate tall claims into actions made in the budget. Plugging the gap between the formulation of laws and their implementation is the need of the hour as prevention is better than cure. A stich in time saves nine”. It is time to act!




https://tribune.com.pk/story/2018010...mplementation/