The problematic hospital Health care is a basic human right.

Every human being should have reach to a basic clinic or hospital. Shah Meran is a town located about 40 km away from Lahore (Pakistan). It is a densely populated town with very little infrastructure. The local town management recently built a civil hospital there to give relief to residents. It was a 50 bed hospital and equipped with modern technology. The new hospital was meant to provide free treatment to local residents suffering from minor diseases to major ones. The hospital was fantastic news for the residents but what dampened their spirits was the hiring of the doctors there. Hiring doctors and nurses for a hospital should be a very selective and careful project which was overlooked. The Problem started when the local authorities hired young and inexperienced doctors on low salaries from Lahore overlooking the local doctors. In the first month of the new hospital it was reported that a woman died due to negligence and overdose of medicine by the doctors. There was a huge uproar but the town management stepped in and cooled the matter by compensating the grieved and arresting the doctor responsible. A few months after, news surfaced that some of the doctors were not treating the patients free and have set up their own small clinics and were referring patients there. This angered the local residents and they complained to the town management. The management immediately sacked the involved doctors. The sacking of doctors added fuel to the fire as the other doctors responded by having a strike against the sacking and demanded that the doctors to be reinstated. Finally, the town management surrendered to their demands and the doctors were reinstated with an oath of not doing the same again. The main problem started when the hospital building and equipments started to deteriorate due to improper or no care. Cement started coming off the walls, the machines for example the X-ray machine broke down etc. The town management responded to this by putting temporary plasters on the wall and buying new machines. Finally, in my opinion the town management could have responded in a different and better manner to these problems. The needed to analyze the root cause of these problems. The hiring of the doctors should have been done locally of more experienced doctors. Moreover, doctors should be paid better salaries so they dont set up their private clinics. Furthermore, instead of maintain the hospital temporarily and buying new machines which cost a lot of money, they should hire some maintenance staff for the regular take care of the building. Similarly, they should get the machines repaired instead of buying new ones, until the new cost less than the repair. If the town management takes these steps, local residents will be better served. Furthermore, it will not only serve the right for healthcare but the right for a job too.