Friday, March 30, 2018
Sindh Government Children Hospital, a state-of-the-art health facility
With a vision to be the best children’s hospital in Karachi, the Sindh Government Children Hospital (SGCH), which is under the control of an NGO – namely Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI) under public-private partnership (PPP) mode – has surfaced as the first ever government health facility which is providing international standard quality healthcare services to children under the age 12.
While talking to Pakistan Today, Operations GM at PEI Syed Gohar Ali Shah said the NGO took over the reign of the children hospital on September 30, 2016, to provide a foundation for the next 10 years of the service (first phase of the partnership).
He said that PEI was striving to improve the access and quality of care that resulted in the quick moving of 50-bedded hospital into a 210-bedded functional hospital. “The outpatient services moved from average 300-500 patients a day to 1500-200 per day including speciality clinic while the government staff were given top salaries,” Gohar added.
According to Gohar, the PEI worked on the continuation of medical education, preventive maintenance of the equipment, strengthening of janitorial and security department, isolation care/high dependency care, Qmatic system and free care with respect and dignity. The hospital is providing all the facilities including OPD, IPD, diagnostic, ambulatory care and pharmacy, he told this scribe.
While briefing about the OPD services, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SGCH Dr Fatima Mohabat Ali said that in January 2017, the hospital had a total of 26,193 patients in just one month, which had now climbed to 44,166 in January 2018 that showed the performance of the hospital and teamwork.
The special OPD had 2,551 patients in January 2017 which became 4,160 children patients by January 2018. The hospital’s pathology department undertook 2,864 tests in January 2017 which jumped to 16,229 in January 2018. The admissions of the children were 297 patients in January 2017 which rocketed pass 696 in January 2018.
Informing about the performance of the surgical department, she said that the hospital had carried out 80 surgeries in January which reached to 199 in January 2018, adding that that hospital’s emergency department treated some 2967 patients in January 2017 which was 10,687 patients in January 2018.
“The hospital has a total strength of some 404 staff that included 77 doctors/specialists, 172 paramedics, 58 in administration, 90 government staff”, Dr Fatima added.
While informing about the future plans, the CEO of SGCH said the PEI was undertaking the renovation of the old building with the view of establishing an extra sixty beds as the hospital would be expanded up to 270 beds. “We are also working to build a strong collaboration with the leading hospitals and institutions and to get ISO certification”, she stated.
Militant leader, ex-bin Laden ally roams freely in Pakistan
By Kathy Gannon
He is crisscrossing Pakistan championing a fatwa, or Islamic religious decree, forbidding militant violence inside the country. But the mere fact that Fazlur Rehman Khalil, veteran leader of an organization designated as a terror group by the U.S., is free has experts questioning Pakistan’s willingness to fight extremism.
Khalil, once a close friend of the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, co-founded Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, a group accused by India of attacking its forces in the Kashmir region and by the U.S. of training militants and carrying out attacks in Afghanistan. The group has undergone several name changes over time and is now known as Ansar-ul Ummah.
But authorities have left him alone. At his home on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, the gates are protected by a burly, bushy bearded guard whose automatic rifle is always at his side. Khalil’s madrassa, or religious school, named for Khalid bin Al-Waleed, one of the most prominent early Muslim commanders leading the conquest of Iraq and Syria in the 7th century, occupies a sprawling compound next door in the middle of a crowded market. In an interview with The Associated Press, Khalil denied the accusations against his group and he applauded the fatwa, which he joined other Sunni and Shiite religious scholars in writing, denouncing militant violence in Pakistan as against Islam. The fatwa, issued in January, is the first such decree issued by such a broad range of scholars in Pakistan. “Terrorism, suicide attacks, blasts, and killing of innocent people are forbidden in Pakistan, in accordance with Sharia (Islamic law),” Khalil said, dressed in a starched white traditional shalwar kameez and looking relaxed on the manicured lush green lawn of his compound.
“Religious scholars belonging to different schools of thought are unanimous on the issue and are against terrorism.”
Afghanistan has criticized the fatwa because it is specific to Pakistan. Khalil said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani should call Islamic scholars in his country together to issue a fatwa of their own. He offered to go to Kabul to help craft the fatwa.
“If Ghani does this we will support his initiative. We wish he would do it. If Afghans sit with us we will support them,” he said. Since the beginning of the year Pakistan has come under relentless pressure from the United States to crack down on militants, particularly the Haqqani network, it says has found safe havens in Pakistan. While Islamabad denies organized havens, it says insurgents move around among the 1.5 million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan.
U.S. President Donald Trump in a blistering New Year’s day tweet accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit” and later suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid.
The 55-year-old Khalil’s stature in the militant hierarchy has waned since the late 1990s, when he signed on to bin Laden’s fatwa ordering the faithful to attack U.S. interests wherever they found them.
Still, his organization’s publications are used to raise money and have exhorted the faithful to fight in Afghanistan, where the Afghan National Army, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, is struggling against a resurgent Taliban. That sort of fundraising has contributed to the likelihood that Pakistan will be placed on a so called ‘gray list” of countries doing too little to stop terrorism when the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-government group trying to stem terror financing, meets in June. The U.S. State Department in 2014 said Khalil’s group still runs training camps in eastern Afghanistan. In 2016, Indian security forces said they arrested five Harakat members on its side of the disputed Kashmir region, allegedly planning attacks on Indian dignitaries Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center. “Even if he’s not making much noise, he shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
Khalil dismissed U.S. criticism of Pakistan for allowing militant leaders to roam free.
“Whether America likes it or doesn’t like it makes no difference to me. I am Pakistani. We have courts. We are not U.S. slaves,” he said.
“If Pakistan has any charges of terrorism they can summon us. I am ready to go to court. The U.S. is not interested in courts, it is pressing for extra-judicial actions,” he said.
Khalil called U.S. policy confused and contradictory. He dismissed suggestions that the Haqqani network, which the U.S. has declared a terrorist group, is separate from the Taliban, which has not been declared a terrorist group to leave open the possibility of future negotiations. “You can’t separate the two. ... Taliban and Haqqanis are the same,” he said. “Sirajuddin Haqqani is the Number 2 in the Taliban. How can you separate the two?” Khalil, like many militants in south and southeast Asia, traces his career back to Afghanistan during the Soviet Union’s occupation in the 1980s. Then he fought on the side of the United States, which backed the mujahedeen — or, as President Ronald Reagan called them, “freedom fighters.” Today, many have joined the Afghan Taliban.
Khalil said U.S. intelligence trained him on the sophisticated U.S. Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that historians say turned the tide of the war. The Soviets withdrew in 1989.
“I have fought with the Americans in Afghanistan,” he said. “But I haven’t gone to Kashmir for a single day.” Analysts say Pakistan’s policy of allowing militants their freedom is mostly motivated by its concerns about India, against whom it has fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.
Pakistan also repeatedly reminds the United States and its critics that it has lost thousands of soldiers — more than the U.S. and NATO combined in Afghanistan __ fighting militants on its territory. It says U.S. criticism is unfair and an attempt to put its own failures in Afghanistan on the shoulders of Pakistan. “Pakistan has certainly taken aggressive action against some militant groups” said Seth Jones, director of Transnational threats Project at the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. But its intelligence agencies “continue to use some militants as a tool of foreign policy in countries like Afghanistan and India.”
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari strongly condemns the brutal rape and murder of MA English student Abida
Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has strongly condemned the brutal rape and murder of MA English student, Abida, who was found dead, after allegedly being subjected to sexual abuse in Faisalabad.
In a statement issued here, the PPP Chairman said that growing incidents of crimes against women were intolerable and culprits should be apprehended without any delay.
In a statement issued here, the PPP Chairman said that growing incidents of crimes against women were intolerable and culprits should be apprehended without any delay.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari asked government to immediately arrest the tormentors and ensure exemplary punishment to them as per the law.
https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/2018/03/30/bilawal-bhutto-zardari-strongly-condemns-the-brutal-rape-and-murder-of-ma-english-student-abida/
Being an activist in Pakistan is hard but when I met Malala my work seemed validated
By Sarah Belal
We didn’t know who we were meeting until just a few hours before. All we had been told was to show up.
Perhaps that is why when 20 of us female human rights defenders found ourselves in a room waiting for her to arrive, none of us had quite calibrated what was happening.
Women, many of whom are institutions unto themselves, were teetering with excitement, joy – emotions not common in the lives of activists.
There was Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who works to liberate brick kiln slaves, Anis Haroon, a National Human Rights Commissioner, Khawer Mumtaz, Muniba Mazari, Nighat Dad, Samar Minallah, activists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
We all know of each other but our schedules rarely, if ever, bring us all into the same city, let alone the same room.
We started taking pictures to commemorate this moment. It isn’t often you are in the same room as all your sheroes.
As we took our seats, the doors opened.
Despite a whirlwind schedule, the world’s youngest Nobel Prize winner had made time to meet the women on the ground to inspire both the old and new generations of activists.
Malala went around the room, greeting each female activist individually by shaking their hand, sometimes leaning in for a quick hug. Some had met her before. Some, like me, had only ever seen her on television. But the delight of both was the same.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who had organised the meeting, asked everyone to briefly introduce themselves to Malala. But this moment was about Malala, nothing else.
Some told her they had not been able to sleep the night before when they found out they would be meeting her.
Anis Haroon, who has dedicated her life to the cause of human rights in Pakistan, had flown in from Karachi just that morning. The short notice had made it difficult to get a proper token of her affection, she said.
But she had brought with her the iconic Women’s Action Forum scarf, yellow, imprinted with laws and poetry that uphold the rights of women. Malala got up and went up to Anis Haroon, who draped the scarf around her shoulders, welcoming her into this decades-long battle.
Anis Haroon then invited present and past WAF activists to be photographed with Malala, in a moment of inclusiveness that echoed the generosity and positivity in the room. That is Malala’s power.
Malala is a listener. She speaks when called upon, and when she does, her words take comfort in their wisdom. She sits up straight, she makes eye contact. Her confidence is one fostered over years of experience. Only, Malala is just 20 years old. Her small stature emphasises this. We all know the battles she has fought. We all know the enemies she takes on. We all know the ambitions she has.
I told her, you are so young. I told her that I have two daughters and as inspirational as she was for them, I hoped that she could still find time to enjoy what is left of her childhood.
There is a collective acknowledgement of this in the room, each looking at her, aware of the normalcy she has traded in for her extraordinary life. When the introductions are done, Malala takes a deep breath. If she is overwhelmed, she does not show it. She knows how to navigate her distinction without a trace of arrogance.
She is comfortable in a room full of Pakistan’s leading activists. And surprisingly, Pakistan’s leading activists are comfortable in a room with her.
Earlier in the day, I had met a fellow activist at a café who was bursting with excitement at having just met Malala at the Prime Minister’s House.
I asked him how she was, and he said she was thronged by people which seemed to overwhelm her. And yet in this room, as we bonded over her arrival, she was calm, collected and eager to listen. Malala is thrilled to be home. She has dreamed of this moment, and like many of us, can’t bring herself to believe that her dream of returning to her country came true.
She was apprehensive about her reception in Pakistan but was glad to see that she had been welcomed with open arms.
Sure, she manages the Malala Fund for Education. But, she tells us, she has assignments due at Oxford. She worries about homework. Her friends at university have been texting her constantly, who are in disbelief that she managed to keep her trip to Pakistan secret from them.
We are heartened to hear of these small marks of student life. It is apparent that Malala can have a life, not entirely untouched by her celebrity but still pretty close.
Malala has always been serious about her studies, we know that. Even after she was shot, her first conversation with her father from the U.K. included an impassioned plea to bring her books with him. Her Matriculation exams were right around the corner, after all.
Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, sits next to her. He lets her shine, and speaks with the same respect he has passed down to his daughter.
There was something personal about how we understood what his support had done for Malala.
We all know how enabling having a father-figure that supports our work can be, and the courage it gives you to embark on a path less trodden. Malala says her home country looks the same. Only, everything is different. There is so much hope, she finds, and is deeply touched by the kindness she has found in just this room.
I have never seen activists in such a good mood.
Last month, the civil society in Pakistan lost one of its giants. There was a sense of foreboding, as if we had lost a compass in a terrain that suddenly had become unfamiliar despite years of having walked it. Even the most steadfast of us felt broken by Asma Jahangir’s death. Being an activist in Pakistan, being an activist anywhere, is a taxing road. But when we met Malala, the work seemed validated.
That if this young woman could find her way back, after everything she had been through, with her faith and will intact, how could we not keep fighting?
The struggle is long and often a lonely one, but how were we alone if we had each other?
And make no mistake, Malala fights the good fight. She brings nuance to the narrative about Pakistan in the West.
She is accused of being a tool for this narrative, but rest assured, she is no one’s fool.
She was not yet 16 years old when she met President Obama, who had asked her to come at the White House, and raised the impact of drone warfare on her people, reminding him of their murderous consequences.
Her very existence complicates things for the very institutions that paint Pakistan with a broad brush. And she does not let them forget that.
To those who know this, her homecoming was the triumph for the years of standing up for her.
This meeting wasn’t a baton-passing ceremony. None of us marked her out to continue the journeys that many of us embarked on before Malala was even born. That is not what we were there to do. What it was, was a moment of validation and joy, for what she meant as a global symbol of Pakistani women fighting for a just world. It is easy to overlook how much courage it took for her to come back home, and in that room, that bravery was infectious. The best you can do as an activist is to create a path for future activists. You are lucky if you even guide one.
And here was Malala, uniting us all to continue to march forward, demanding more, fighting back and never giving up.
When she left the room, we all looked at each other in excitement. We took some more photos, hugged each other, promising to help each other in our respective battles.
Eventually, we all got up and returned to the work that we do.
#MalalaYousafzai - #Malala visits native Pakistan, 1st time since Taliban attack
By Munir Ahmed and Sherin Zada
Yousafzai, who landed in her home country just before dawn flanked by heavy security, said in a brief speech at a ceremony at Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s office that she will continue to campaign for the education of girls and asked Pakistanis to be united on issues like providing better health care and education.
She said she remembered having to leave Pakistan for treatment after she was attacked. Covering her tear-filled eyes with her hands, Yousafzai said it was hard to wait for more than five years to return home.
“It is now actually happening and I am here,” she said.
It’s unclear how long Yousafzai will stay, neither she nor her family have announced any travel plans. Pakistani officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said their understanding is that her visit will last until Monday.
Speaking after meeting the prime minister, Yousafzai said Pakistan was always in her thoughts — even when she traveled to cities like New York or London.
“I was always dreaming for the past five years, that I can come to my country, whenever I was travelling abroad,” she said, adding that her dreams were of simple things, “like driving in Karachi, Islamabad.”
“Finally, I am here,” she said.
Since the attack, Yousafzai spent lengthy stretches of time undergoing medical treatment to recover from her wounds. She also went to school in Britain.
Her native Swat Valley still sees occasional militant attacks, though the Pakistani military has largely restored peace since retaking the area. In February, a suicide bombing at an empty lot used by soldiers for sports and exercise killed 11 troops, underscoring the threat that militants still pose to the region and this Islamic nation. Abbasi praised Yousafzai for her sacrifices and role in the promotion of girls’ education. He said he was happy to welcome her home, where he said “terrorism has been eliminated” — a line often repeated by Islamabad despite persisting militant attacks across the country.
Since her attack and recovery, Yousafzai has also led the “Malala Fund,” which she said has invested $6 million in schools and to provide books and uniforms for schoolchildren. “For the betterment of Pakistan, it is necessary to educate girls and empower women,” she said.
Earlier, tight security greeted the now-20-year-old university student upon her arrival at Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport. Local television stations showed her with her parents in the lounge at the airport, before leaving in a convoy of nearly 15 vehicles, many of them occupied by heavily armed police. Her return had been shrouded in secrecy and she was not likely to travel to her hometown of Mingora in the Swat Valley, where the shooting occurred.
As news broke about Yousafzai’s arrival, many of her fellow Pakistanis welcomed her.
The party of Imran Khan, former international cricket star and now leading Pakistani opposition politician, said Yousafzai’s return was a sign of the defeat of extremism in the country. Mohammad Hassan, one of Yousafzai’s cousins in the northwestern town of Mingora, said it was one of the happiest days of his life. He said he was not sure whether Yousafzai will visit her hometown, where he said schoolchildren were jubilant and wished they could greet her.
Javeria Khan, a 12-year-old schoolgirl in Mingora said she wished she “could see her in Swat.”
“I wish she had come here, but we welcome her,” she said, as she sat among schoolchildren.
Marvi Memon, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League party, said it was a pleasant surprise for her to see Yousafzai back home and a “proud day” for Pakistan. “What an incredible surprise, I woke up to this morning” to know that Yousafzai is back along with her parents, Memon said.
Yousafzai was just 14 years old but already known for her activism when Taliban gunman boarded the school van in which she was sitting and demanded to know “who is Malala?” before shooting her in the head. Two of her classmates were also wounded.
In critical condition, Yousafzai was flown to the garrison city of Rawalpindi before being airlifted to Birmingham in Britain.
She has since spoken at the United Nations, mesmerizing the world with her eloquence and her unrelenting commitment to the promotion of girls’ education through the Malala Fund, a book, meetings with refugees and other activism. She was awarded the Nobel in 2014, along with Indian child-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, and said on the day she collected the prize that “education is one of the blessings of life, and one of its necessities.”
She remained in Britain after undergoing medical treatment there and was accepted to the University of Oxford last year.
At home in Pakistan, however, she has been condemned by some as a Western mouthpiece. Some have even suggested on social media that the shooting was staged. Yousafzai has repeatedly responded to the criticism with a grace far outstripping her years, often saying education is neither Western, nor Eastern.
Often when she has spoken in public, Yousafzai has championed her home country and spoken in her native Pashto language, always promising to return to her home.
Joy in Nobel winner Malala's hometown, though some Pakistanis decry her
By Asif Shahzad
By late Friday it was not yet clear whether security considerations would allow Yousafzai to return to Swat Valley, but many are eagerly awaiting her.
“We’re very happy that Malala has come to Pakistan. We welcome Malala,” said Arfa Akhtar, a third grade student in a school where Yousafzai once studied. “I’m also Malala. I’m with Malala in this mission.” Barkat Ali, 66, says he remembers holding Malala in his lap when she was a child in Mingora. He is proud of the 20-year-old’s struggle to promote girls’ education, just as he is of his refusal 10 years ago to turn over his son when the Taliban demanded new fighters.
“They were the old illiterate people who would say that our daughters will not go to schools,” Ali said, recalling two mortar shells landing in his street, often patrolled by the Taliban.
“Now people have become sensible. They educate their girls.”
The Pakistani Taliban took over much of the valley starting in 2007, banning girls’ education, killing people, flogging women and hanging bodies from electric poles to enforce their harsh interpretation of Islamic law before the Pakistani army drove them out in 2009.
Not everyone in Swat, though, has such reverence for Yousafzai who became the youngest Nobel laureate in history in 2014 at age 17.
Swat resident Mohammad Nisar Khan says the international celebrity and official protection given to the young woman overshadows the sacrifices made by others in Swat.
“We were the ones who stood up against the Taliban... My four uncles and two cousins were slaughtered by the Taliban in Matta. They were brutally martyred. Yet, no one has asked about me,” Khan said.
“Can someone show me one brave deed that Malala Yousafzai has performed ... that we have not performed at age 50?” Elsewhere in parts of Pakistan, her arrival was met with outright hostility from those who accuse her of building a career abroad by painting a negative picture of her homeland. In the eastern city of Lahore, a group of private schools staged a protest with teachers and their students chanting “I am not Malala”, some wearing black armbands.
The organizer of the protest, Kashif Mirza, said dozens of private school chains participated and teachers told students in classes “that Malala does not represent true Pakistan”.
“She maligned Pakistan, Islam and the Pakistani army after going abroad,” said Mirza, who leads the President of All Pakistan Private Schools Federation. He said his group condemned the gun attack on Yousafzai but said since going abroad she had been influenced by foreign powers.
Other private schools, however, declined to join the anti-Malala protest.
“No such day was observed in any of our branches, because we don’t support any event which spreads hatred,” said Tabraiz Bokhari, spokesman of Beacon House School System, with 200 affiliates across Pakistan.
In the nine years since the army drove out the Taliban, Swat has become mostly peaceful, though there are still occasional militant attacks including one several weeks ago targeting the military.
Many Swat residents, including family friend Jawad Iqbal, are hopeful Malala will be able to return on this trip.
“The people of Swat and the whole of Pakistan are with Malala,” Iqbal said standing in front of a portrait of Yousafzai with her father, who is a teacher. “God willing, we will counter the terrorism and extremism in our region with the weapon of education, with the weapon of a pen, with the weapons of teachers and with the weapons of books.”
Along the road where Malala was shot on her school bus, resident Amir Zeb also said he hopes Malala will visit her hometown.
“Malala Yousafzai is the daughter of Pakistan,” he said, adding. “We’re proud of her.”