Pakistan Technology Ads, Event, Gadgets

A joint demonstration involving multiple defense agencies and several aerospace companies proved that smart phone technology can be used to improve battlefield awareness.

A tactical digital network, featuring advanced digital radios, hand-held cellular smart phones, a helicopter-mounted “cell tower in the sky” and a boarding party in the Chesapeake Bay recently completed a joint interoperability demonstration.

“This is a big deal because until recently, we’ve not been able to communicate between devices in a tactical networked environment without extensive preplanning and coordination,” said Cmdr. Chris McMahan, Naval Aviation Center for Rotorcraft Advancement demonstration coordinator. “Today’s data links are mostly point-to-point networks where ad hoc connections aren’t possible.”

Participating teams displayed ad hoc data sharing on a simulated battlefield in a December exercise by using hand-held cellular smart phones to send and receive real-time video, voice and text sharing between a small-boat team on the Bay and the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s Surface/Aviation Interoperability Laboratory.

The participating teams included NACRA, SAIL, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and aerospace companies Northrop Grumman and Rockwell Collins.

“It’s the same idea as accessing the Internet from a smart phone or a Wi-Fi-capable notebook to share email or a video with a friend,” explained McMahan. “The Internet doesn’t care what your device is as long as it uses the right protocols. This is the same thing, only we’re doing it encrypted in a tactical environment where we have to bring our own mobile cell tower mounted on the helicopter.”

And while that might seem routine for civilian Internet users, it’s challenging in a secure tactical arena.

“We’re trying to achieve ‘platform agnosticism,’ where you don’t have to preplan participation,” McMahan added. “Much like how we’re able to access the Internet via any number of available devices and modes, we wanted to demo an encrypted tactical network where the data is important and the devices are relatively transparent.”

Specific network capabilities included Quint Networking Technology, 4G/LTE wireless networks, L band, C band and UHF radios, PRC-117G radios, Blue Force Tracker and a 3G/4G LTE transmitter mounted on one of NACRA’s testbed helicopters.

Key to the demo was DARPA’s Tactical Targeted Network Technologies — an Internet Protocol (IP) based, high-speed, dynamic, ad hoc network hosted by the Rockwell-Collins QNT networking radios. The Naval Air Warfare Center’s SAIL acted as a ship, providing a sea-based node to the network, demonstrating the ability to access an IP-based network from the sea.

Marines witnessed the first flight of the service’s newest small unmanned aircraft Jan. 22 at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

As part of the RQ-21A Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (STUAS) Early Operational Capability (EOC), personnel from Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron (VMU) 2 and 3 and Insitu operators exercised the current configuration of Insitu’s Integrator for the two-hour maiden flight.

“The lessons learned from this flight and all operations that will be conducted at Twentynine Palms are invaluable,” said Lt. Col. John Allee, STUAS integrated product team co-lead at Pax River. “It will help our Marines fully understand how to operate the system when in theater.”

Insitu delivered one EOC system, which is the current configuration of the company’s Integrator, to Twentynine Palms early in January. The EOC contract option allows for up to 30 months of contractor-provided training and logistics services for the Integrator system. The team at Pax River received the second EOC system Jan. 12.

“This is a substantial achievement for the team” said Heather Bromley, STUAS IPT co-lead. “To go from contract award to an operable system in 16 months is a testament to the responsiveness of both the government and contractor personnel.”
A CONUS-based deployment for EOC allows the Navy and Marine Corps to train operators, collect additional performance data and support development for Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The government-industry team will continue to develop the RQ-21A configuration for initial and full operational capability while the EOC system is deployed with VMU-3.

RQ-21A will have payload capacity to support multi missions in a single sortie. Its sensor package will include Electro-Optic, mid-wave infrared cameras with an infrared marker and laser rangefinder.

“We are very excited to deploy an asset that has a greater performance capability with a significantly larger payload, mass, volume and power than intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance services available in theater today,” said Marine Col. Jim Rector, Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS program manager.

RQ-21A will eventually replace the Navy and Marine ISR services contract in which current ISR missions are conducted in Iraq, Afghanistan and shipboard. The system will provide battlefield commanders with an organic capability 24/7, for real-time, actionable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“The appetite for ISR has been insatiable,” Rector said. “There is an increased demand for ISR capability in theater; and with fewer boots on the ground, we need this asset more than ever.”

Spending priorities in the forthcoming fiscal year 2013 defense budget request call for reductions in the end strength of the Army and Marine Corps, an increase in special operations forces and maintaining the number of big-deck carriers, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said here today.

The Pentagon’s budget topline request is set at $525 billion for fiscal 2013 with an additional $88.4 billion for overseas contingency operations — mostly in Afghanistan. This is down from $531 billion and $115 billion, respectively, in this fiscal year.

Defense Department officials used the new defense strategy guidance that President Barack Obama announced earlier this month to shape the budget request, the secretary said.

The budget seeks to minimize the impact of cuts on personnel accounts. Service members will receive their full pay raises in fiscal 2013 and 2014, Panetta said. “We will achieve some cost savings by providing more limited pay raises beginning in 2015,” he added.

Health care is another important benefit, and one that has far outpaced inflation. Changes to health care will not affect active duty personnel or their families, Panetta said.

“We decided that to help control growth of health care costs, we are recommending increases in health care fees, co-pays and deductibles for retirees,” he said. “But let me be clear that even after these increases, the cost borne by military retirees will remain below the levels in comparable private-sector plans.”

Overall, the request puts DOD on the path to save $259 billion over the next five years and $487 billion over the next 10. Panetta called the budget “a balanced, complete package” that keeps the American military the pre-eminent force in the world.

It is a balanced package, the secretary said, because while some programs are eliminated or delayed, others are increased. The budget looks to re-shape the military to be more agile, quick and flexible that incorporates the lessons learned in 10 years of war, he added.

Increasing the number of special operations forces is key to the plan, Panetta said, and special operators will begin to shift back to their traditional pre-9/11 mission of instructing local forces.

The request puts the Army on a path to drop to 490,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps to 182,000 Marines over five years. Currently, the two services have 562,000 and 202,000 active-duty members, respectively. The secretary noted this is still higher than the numbers on 9/11.

The budget treats the reserve components very carefully, Panetta said. After a decade of being an integral part of America’s wars, the reserve components will not go back to being a strategic Cold War-era reserve. The reserves will be the nation’s hedge against the unexpected, the secretary said.

“We are making only marginal reductions in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard, and no reductions in the Marine Corps Reserve,” the secretary said. “The Air Force will make balanced reductions in the Air Guard that are consistent with reductions in the active component and Air
Force Reserve.”

The request also calls for more base realignments and closures, and a “BRAC-like” authority to recommend changes to military retirement. “But the president and department have made clear that the retirement benefits of those who currently serve will be protected by grandfathering their benefits,” Panetta said.

The budget maintains the current U.S. focus in the Central Command region and increases American commitment to the Pacific Command area of operations. The request looks to maintain the Navy‘s current 11 aircraft carriers and 10 carrier air wings, Panetta said. It will also maintain the current Marine and Army posture in the Asia-Pacific region, and will base littoral combat
ships in Singapore and Bahrain.

The budget will eliminate two forward-based Army heavy brigades in Europe. Instead, brigades will rotate in and out of the area. The United States and European allies also will look to share costs for new capabilities such as the alliance ground surveillance program.

The Navy will retire seven older cruisers and two amphibious ships early, and the Air Force will eliminate six tactical air squadrons.

The budget sinks more money into technologies to prevail in an anti-access, aerial-denial scenario and will fund the next-generation bomber and modernization of the submarine fleet.

The F-35 joint strike fighter is key to maintaining domain superiority, and the military remains committed to the program, Panetta said. “But in this budget, we have slowed procurement to complete more testing and allow for developmental changes before buying in significant quantities,” he added.

The budget will maintain all legs of the nuclear triad — bombers, ICBMs and submarines — and will invest in significantly more capability in the cyber world, Panetta said.

Panetta stressed the budget is based on strategy and will shape the force for the future. While the pain of cuts will be felt across the country, he said, it will also ensure a strong, agile military for the future.

The budget must pass Congress, and the secretary said he hopes members of Congress understand the strategy and nuances of the budget.

“My hope is that when members understand the sacrifice involved in reducing the defense budget by half a trillion dollars, it will convince Congress to avoid sequestration, a further round of cuts that would inflict severe damage to our national defense for generations,” Panetta said.

The deck of the new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers may be the size of four football pitches and supported by the best part of 65,000 tonnes of steel but, from three miles (5km) out, when viewed through the BAE Systems simulator at Warton, it’s tiny and the target area for landing looks even smaller.

Add in your 150-knot (278km/h) speed, a keen wind, a rolling sea state, a touch of mist, a black night, and you can see why landing an aircraft on a ship is probably the most difficult task most pilots will ever face.

Welcome to the deck of one of the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, due in service by the end of the decade. Well, not quite the real carrier, which is under construction at Rosyth. This is BAE Systems’ simulator at Warton, the only one in the world where the F-35 aircraft meets the future pride of the 2020 Royal Navy.

But this is not about training pilots, nor honing the skills of the personnel whose deck-based task is to guide the aircraft in safely.

This is about designing the flight deck, making sure its massive array of coloured lights and lenses, deck markings and arrestor gear make for the safest environment for recovering the aircraft.

Tests are at an advanced stage using US Navy F-18 pilots, hugely experienced in taking off from and landing on carriers.

This is something new for the UK. Our carriers, remember, have operated the short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) Harriers for more than a generation. Skills in landings are, shall we say, a little rusty.

Tests will inform the Aircraft Carrier Alliance on design of the deck. With every simulated landing, Defence Equipment and Support’s Joint Combat Aircraft Team learns more about the behaviour of the F-35′s Carrier Variant (CV), the F-35C, which the UK will be operating – a decision firmed up by the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The simulator at BAE Systems in Warton is hosting tests to design the deck of the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers:

“Basically we are dealing with a completely different method of landing,” said Pete Symonds of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance.

“With STOVL landing you stop and land; CV landing is land and stop. So it’s a completely different set of lights in completely different positions. Then the aircraft is different. We’ve built a new model into the system as clearly the control laws are different with many different characteristics including an arrestor hook.”

“From the ship point of view it has been an easier task to organise the lighting system as we are now following how the Americans do it. The American layouts have been our starting point and we’re trying to improve on them,” said Mr Symonds.

“And we’re helped by the fact that the actual size of the carrier flight deck was driven by the requirement to be adaptable. The STOVL ship could have been smaller but the adaptable design was driven by the size of the runway, which was needed to recover the aircraft.

“We’ve taken the flight deck, and started again. After the decision was made to move to the Carrier Variant we had a period of looking at variable equipment selection before we started the work.

“We now have the flight deck at what we call level two maturity, so effectively the big bits are already fixed. The design of the flight deck is pretty well sorted.”

Testing will soon move to other simulators to test recovery of helicopters to the carriers.

From the Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) Team’s point of view the F-35C will be equally capable from sea or land:

“The current focus for the JCA Team is ensuring the aircraft is integrated onto the carrier in the most optimal way,” said Wing Commander Willy Hackett, the team’s UK Requirements Manager.

“This aircraft will be the first stealth platform to operate from an aircraft carrier, which will bring new challenges. Recovering an aircraft to a small moving airfield, especially at night or in poor weather, has always focused the mind of any pilot who has flown at sea.

“The F-35 will bring new technology which in time will make landing on an aircraft carrier just another routine part of the mission. On entry into service the aircraft will be equipped with the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System [JPALS] which will guide the aircraft down to a point where the pilot can take over and land the aircraft manually.

“Future upgrades intend to allow JPALS to actually land the aircraft without pilot input in very poor weather.”

He added: “A new flight control system, combined with new symbology in the helmet-mounted display, looks to drastically reduce pilot workload on a manually flown approach.

“This technology is being investigated by the US and UK, and if successful will see a major reduction in the training required to keep pilots competent at landing on aircraft carriers from the middle of the next decade.

“Once this new technology is invested in the F-35C the pilot will be able to focus on the mission to an even greater extent than is possible now in the current generation of carrier variant aircraft.

“UK JCA squadrons will therefore be more operationally focused than current generation sea-based aircraft and will keep UK air power at the front rank of military powers.”

So who benefits most from the current carrier testing? Back to Mr Symonds:

“Well actually it’s both the Aircraft Carrier Alliance [ACA] and the Joint Combat Aircraft Team,” he said. “From the aircraft side the team has to be satisfied it is safe to operate the aircraft at sea efficiently. So in terms of the JCA safety case, it is critical that we are able to demonstrate safe F-35C recovery operations.

“From the ACA perspective, we have to prove that the ship is safe to operate the aeroplane so we have to provide sufficient visual landing aids to demonstrate to our safety case that it works. Both teams must be confident that what we will be putting on the deck works. We will be making sure it is a win/win for both teams.”

Landing on the new carriers – what the pilot sees

Aircraft approach the stern as the carrier steams into the wind. Pilots aim for the second or third of the arrestor wires – the safest, most effective target.

Aircraft are guided by deck personnel – the Landing Signal Officers – via radio and the collection of lights on deck.

When the aircraft has landed the pilot powers up the engines to make sure that, if the tailhook doesn’t catch a wire, the plane is moving fast enough to take off again.

Pilots will look at the Improved Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System for guidance – a series of lights and lenses on a gyroscopically-stabilised platform.

Lenses focus light into narrow beams directed into the sky at various angles. Pilots will see different lights depending on the plane’s angle of approach. On target, the pilot will see an amber light in line with a row of green lights.

If the amber light is above the green, the plane is too high; below green it is too low. Much too low and the pilot will see red lights.

So how did I do? My first attempt saw my F-35 scream way past the carrier, too fast, too high, and with no hope of landing. A second was just as wayward, overshooting and just missing the island superstructures, necessitating a stomach-churning go-around.

A third and final approach needed a last-second drop in height, allowing me to find the last of the arrestor wires, ending in a landing more akin to Fosbury than any of the elite pilots who have been using the simulator for their landings.

The flight deck has about 250 metres of runway distance for landing aircraft. A runway on land would be around 12 times longer. And doesn’t move.

Landing on a carrier deck pitching up and down by up to 30 feet (9m) in a rough sea can be daunting enough. A pilot has to place the aircraft’s tailhook in a precise part of the deck 150 feet (46m) long by 30 feet (9m) wide to catch the arrestor wires, and do it at night too.

The arresting wire system can stop a 25-tonne aircraft travelling at 150 miles per hour (240km/h) in just two seconds in a 300-feet (90m) landing area. Deceleration is up to 4Gs.

Owned and operated by Costa Crociere, a supplementary of American- British Carnival Corporation and plc, the Italian cruise MS Costa was a Concordia class cruise ship built in Italy.

The name ‘Concordia’ was desired to project harmony and peace between European nations.

On 13 January 2012 the ship struck a rock which caused a 160 ft long hole ultimately drowning it in shallow water by the Tyrrhenian Sea just off the shore of Isolo del Giglio, Italy.

The number of the passengers on board was 4,200 and 16 deaths have been confirmed so far. Another 16 remain missing.

A good wheat crop and a slump in international commodity prices will ensure a comfortable supply position of flour in the country. However, the price of flour may still go up as the government has increased the wheat support price by Rs100 per 40 kg.

The market players expected the flour price to hike by Rs3 per kg in April 2012 when the new crop is procured at new support price of Rs1,050 per 40 kg. Last year support price for
wheat was Rs950.

Flour millers said that the said increase in wheat support price will push wholesale price of flour by Rs2.50 per kg and consumers might end up paying Rs3 per kg more.

Chairman Sindh Flour Mills Association (Sindh Zone) Shaikh Mumtaz told Dawn on Thursday that beside impact of high support price of wheat on flour price trend everything looks perfect.

“There will be no shortage of wheat in 2012 as the crop size is expected to be the same as last year,” he hoped.

Besides Sindh has 350,000-400,000 tons of wheat stocks while Punjab has 2.5 to three million tons of stocks in hand of last year’s crop which means that there would be no shortage of wheat in the current year.

However, recent print media reports revealed that the government may miss the wheat production target of 25 million tons this year owing to two to three per cent drop in wheat sowing target especially in Punjab by one million acres.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah in a meeting held on January 4 regarding procurement of wheat for the current crop feared possibility of lesser wheat yield as compared to last year. The Sindh government would procure 1.3 million tons of wheat from growers this year.

Thanks to bumper crop last year the prices of various varieties of flour remained stable or fell slightly. On January 2011, the price of mill fine flour, atta no. 2.5 and chakki flour were Rs35, Rs33 and Rs36 as compared to Rs34, Rs33 and Rs36 per kg in December 2011. Flour price saw increase in June to August 2011 but later declined.

On chances of wheat export this year, Shaikh Mumtaz said much depends on the world prices but currently the price of wheat in global market hovers between $200-250 per ton depending on the quality.

“Chances of exports look dim this year as Russian wheat is already available at low prices,” he added.

Former chairman PFMA Ansar Javed said that wheat in terms of dollar would cost over $300 per ton after increase in support price so Pakistani exporters will not be able to compete with their rivals on the world markets.

According to data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the country had exported 1.707 million tons of wheat worth $587 million in July-June 2010-2011 to African countries, Bangladesh, Malaysia etc., as compared to 3,516 tons valuing $735,000 in the same period of last fiscal year.

Wheat Brokers and Trade Association Chairman Altaf Nini also portrayed bleak prospects of export this year in view of low prices on global markets hovering $220-225 per ton.

He linked low wheat rate in world market to good wheat crop of Russia, Australia, India and Argentina.

On wheat crop size, he said, the country would easily produce 22-23 million tons this year.

Unlike most Pakistanis, who lack access to adequate healthcare, President Zardari is fortunate to have access to the finest healthcare services available in Pakistan. If the physicians and the medical facilities in Pakistan do not measure up to the Presidential needs, he can be flown to the state-of- the-art facilities in the Middle East or beyond.

While the rich-and-famous in Pakistan enjoy almost the same quality of healthcare as one would receive in a developed economy, the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are severely underserved in health and wellness services. The healthcare spending in Pakistan accounts for fewer than 3 per cent of the GDP.

Further compounding the problem is the migration of trained physicians from Pakistan to developed economies. While Pakistan graduates several hundred physicians each year from medical colleges and universities, a large number of these graduates leave Pakistan for specialization abroad. Many never return to serve in Pakistan. The physicians’ brain drain has resulted in only 0.74 doctors per 1,000 persons in Pakistan. Israel, on the other hand, boasts 3.8 doctors per 1,000 people. Even with a population base of over a billion, China reports 1.5 doctors per 1,000 people. By 2020, the doctors shortfall in Pakistan is estimated between 58,000 and 451,000.1At the same time, World Health Organization estimates a global shortfall of 4 million doctors.

The total number of physicians in Pakistan is estimated at about 120,000. However, a large number of Pakistani doctors have emigrated from Pakistan. Saad Shafqat and Anita Zaidi in 2007 estimated that there were at least 10,000 Pakistan-trained physicians serving in the United States alone.2 Other estimates put the total number of Pakistani physicians serving in the US and Commonwealth countries at around 14,000.

Some elite medical schools in Pakistan are known for their graduates to leave Pakistan in large numbers. For instance, by 2004, 900 out of the 1,100 medical graduates from the Aga Khan University left Pakistan for specialization. Reports suggest that only 40 doctors returned after completing specialization abroad.

Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and UK are known for aggressively recruiting medical professionals from abroad to meet the demand for physicians. One in four of the 780,000 doctors in the United States holds foreign qualifications. Furthermore, 64 per cent of the foreign trained doctors in the United States emigrated from low-income countries to the US.3 Similarly in UK, 92,000 of the 245,000 physicians were foreign trained.4

The supply lines providing foreign trained medical professionals to the US and UK have their origins in the Philippines, India, and Pakistan. The US alone absorbs 15,000 nurses annually, half of which come from the Philippines.5 Similarly, half of the 12,000 nurses absorbed in the UK were either from India or the Philippines.

The poaching of highly trained medical professionals by the rich countries plays havoc with the healthcare systems of low-income countries. At one point, the Philippines had shipped off so many nurses abroad that it could not keep wards operating in certain facilities. For some specializations, the resulting shortage is acute in home countries. Rachel Jenkins and others report that compared to the 315 psychiatrists serving in Pakistan there are 1,473 Pakistani-trained psychiatrists who serve abroad.

The sustained demand for foreign-trained doctors in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand is known to most medical students in Pakistan who start preparing for foreign licensing exams while they complete their medical diplomas in Pakistan. Surveys of final-year medical students at King Edward Medical University in Lahore, Aga Khan University and Baqai University in Karachi, reveal that most students would prefer to travel abroad for specialization. More specifically, 95 per cent of the graduating class in Aga Khan University, 65 per cent in Baqai University, and 60 per cent in King Edward revealed their plans to travel abroad for specialisation.

Many medical professionals/students who travel abroad for specialization believe that they would one day return to Pakistan. Most in fact never do. Saad Shafqat and Anita Zaidi reported that of the 10,000 Pakistan-trained physicians in the United States only 300 doctors are known to have returned to Pakistan. Again, only 40 of the 900 Aga Khan University alums, who had gone abroad for specialization, made their way back to their motherland.6,1 Only 14 per cent of the respondents at King Edward Medical University indicated that they would like to return soon after completing their specialization. The rest had plans to stay for longer periods abroad or for never to return.

Young physicians however have sound reasons for their lack of enthusiasm in serving within Pakistan. Saad Shafqat and Anita Zaidi report that young medical interns are paid approximately $150 per month, which is no longer a decent pay in the inflation-stricken Pakistan. Young doctors cited poor pay, poor quality of training during internship, and poor work environment as the primary reasons for their lack of enthusiasm for serving in Pakistan.

Violent protests by young doctors on the streets in Lahore in March and April of 2011 are signs of young doctors’ frustration with their work environments. Should the federal and provincial governments continue to ignore the plight of young doctors, the brain drain will continue unabated.

TELE-HEALTH: REVERSING BRAIN DRAIN THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Given the worsening of law-and-order situation in Pakistan and the structural collapse of the economy where power and fuel shortages have imposed a state of paralysis on the society, it is unlikely that a large number of Pakistani physicians will return to Pakistan in the near future. The challenge therefore is to find ways to obtain service from Pakistani physicians in diaspora without having them to relocate. Fortunately, the advances in communication and information technology (CIT) make it possible for the willing physicians to extend their practice to Pakistan from their homes and offices in US, UK, and elsewhere.

Tele-health allows physicians in North America and elsewhere to deliver health-related services using the CIT. For instance, physicians are able to observe and treat patients in remote locations by using computerised sensors that deliver patients vitals to the physician using the CIT. Thus blood pressure, temperature, and other observations from a remotely located patient are made available in real time to the doctor located in a clinic or a hospital.

A much simpler version of a tele-health model can be established for Pakistani physicians who are settled in the West to treat low-income patients in rural areas and small towns in Pakistan. Take the example of the 10,000 practising Pakistani physicians in the US who can pool their resources to establish a not-for-profit (charitable) organization in the United States. The organization will generate resources in the US to fund the establishing of basic health units (BHU) in underserved areas in Pakistan. BHUs can be staffed by a nurse or a pharmacist whose primary responsibility will be to maintain a computerised link with the physicians in the US using free service, such as Skype.

Patients in underserved areas in Pakistan can visit BHUs to obtain medical advice from highly trained Pakistani physicians in the diaspora, who will donate their time to the cause.

The morbidity burden in Pakistan is exacerbated by complications resulting from untreated conditions related to diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Patients in underserved parts of Pakistan will be able to get sound advice from foreign-based doctors over Skype or other modes of communication. The early interventions from such interactions will help prevent treatable ailments from turning into chronic diseases that impose significant burden on the poorly-funded healthcare system in Pakistan.

Technology now exists that allows surgeons to remotely operate on their patients. I am proposing a very simple application of tele-health to improve access to basic healthcare in the underserved parts of Pakistan. I know that our doctors in diaspora are keen to serve their motherland and are desperately searching for opportunities to donate time and money. By creating not-for-profits to raise funds to establish BHUs, expatriates (doctors and others) can join hands to turn the brain drain into brain gain.

1. Nazish Imran and others. 2011. Brain drain: Post graduation migration intentions and the influencing factors among medical graduates from Lahore, Pakistan. BMC Research Notes.
2. Saad Shafqat and Anita Zaidi. 2007. Pakistani physicians and the repatriation equation. The New England Journal of Medicine. 442-443.
3. Nadir Ali Syed and others. 2007. Reason for migration among medical students from Karachi. Journal of Medical Education. 61-68.
4. Rachel Jenkins and others. Feb 2010. International migration of doctors, and its impact on availability of psychiatrists in low and middle income countries. PLoS ONE, Volume 5, Issue 2. Pp. 1-9.
5. ibid.
6. Nadir Ali Syed and others. 2007. Reason for migration among medical students from Karachi. Journal of Medical Education. 61-68.

We all grew up hearing the importance of medicine sciences and most of us were encouraged to adopt it as a profession. We were told that serving humanity, saving lives and helping people in distress is an essential component of developed societies, which is truly noble and fulfilling in their own way. In fact, doctors were considered the epitome of prestige and grace in Pakistani society, an echelon which remained unmatched by all the other significant and emerging professions.

However, the situation has changed drastically over a period of time. The plight of Pakistani doctors reverberates across the globe and remains an open question mark to our ‘political leaderships’ and law enforcing agencies. It is not just the security of these professionals which is at stake in our country but it is also the ‘wellbeing’ and ‘health’ of the nation which is impeded by not providing them with protection and justice.

New Year across the world is marked with ceremonies and resolutions, however, the last few days of 2011 were marked by the brutal deaths of various doctors in Pakistan, including police surgeon Dr. Syed Baqir Shah, who was the primary forensic investigator responsible to probe into the famous ‘Kharotabad incident’.

Slain doctors are not an uncommon sight in Pakistan and serve as a deterrent for people to work as one. Saying that the deteriorating political and security situation in the country is threatening everyone, sounds extremely clichéd but it sums up the sense of insecurity which is acting as a noose tightening around our necks, with the passage of every single day.

A young doctor who now serves at New York University Medical Centre, on being asked what brought about his move from Pakistan and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), on the condition of anonymity, said, “When I joined JPMC, I was very excited about my work and practise because the traffic in government hospitals and constant flow of variety of patients help young professionals to learn immensely within a short span of time. I remember being called on emergency duty after a bomb exploded in a local mosque. Ambulances stacked with wounded and dead came pouring in from everywhere which was a traumatic experience in itself.

“However, one of the people representing a local political faction came in with a dead body and pointed a gun at me demanding to ‘cure’ the patient. I was in a state of shock because I knew that the ‘man in question’ was already dead. The ‘pointed gun’ and the man scared the living daylights out of me and I decided to put the ‘corpse’ on ventilator because I knew I had no other way out. From that day onwards I really did not feel thrilled to work for Pakistan or the Pakistani people.”

Another doctor who resigned from Civil Hospital and now runs a private clinic narrated his experience saying, “I left because most of the officials working as Head of the Departments are assigned their respective positions because of their ‘political affiliations’. Moreover, they feel threatened by anyone who has a command over research and is more competent, hence ‘references’ supersede ‘academics’.”

He added, “Induction and career growth through reference is a common ‘modus operandi’ in Pakistan but the reason why I resigned was specifically because of insecurity and injustice prevalent in the government sector. Patients admitted in intensive care units (ICUs) are given priority as per their respective ailments and issues. However, someone with a political background would always demand more attention and his/her ‘accompaniments’ would ‘order’ all the doctors to stand by the bed, neglecting other patients. This generally took place with the help of ‘armed men’ ready to kill the doctors on a whim.”

Death of a political or religious figure generally sparks a spate of vandalism and arson attacks, resulting in further damage to the already derelict government hospitals. Political factors, contributing toward harming doctors and obstructing justice, are depriving Pakistani society with the best of resources.

The exodus of doctors to more civilised countries is bringing about a constant decline in our ‘intellectual pool’ making health facilities more and more expensive. Furthermore, doctors leaving government hospitals for private institutions are creating a gap between the poor masses of Pakistan and appropriate health measures, a gap which is widening by the day.

Brain drain remains one of the many reasons why Pakistan has not progressed much since the time of its establishment. Lack of benefits and being underpaid are clearly not the only factors which ‘shoo’ our doctors away. Defensive mechanisms and proper protection to ensure the interests of doctors are much needed in Pakistan. Without protection brain drain would not cease to continue and will only add on more to our woes and predicaments.