Dr Saad Usmani, former Principal Unani Medical College and a practitioner himself, says that jaundice appears to be raging in the city areas. He told me on Friday evening that he has been receiving at least two fresh jaundice cases daily and some of them are in advanced stage. ‘If I am getting two cases, other doctors—and there are thousands of them in the city—could also be getting the same number if not more. This figure will be above the patients going to hospitals in the city’.
Dr Usmani said water is the villain and the Jal Sansthan/Jal Nigam the super-villains because they have not been able to ensure the supply of pure drinking water. He says, ‘When you ask them the reason they blame it on porous , damaged pipelines which carry dirty water. Dr Usmani told me: ‘An engineer told me, if you are early riser and the first to pull water with your pump, you will get the dirty water. So let others take water first. By the time you do so, say by 7am, the water would be clear’. Dr Saad said, ‘The water at time stinks. People are bound to suffer from water-borne diseases.’ I met Dr Saad at the largely-attended wedding reception of Imran Ali (and Dayang Faridah) son of a great Patrika admirer Mr Barkat Ali (of Haji Ramzan Ali & Sons Enterprises). He said many people in his locality (Pathar Ki Gali) have uneasy sensation in stomach after drinking water and thereafter eating anything. What was the remedy? He said, ‘Boil and cool water before drinking it- or put alum’ and he mentioned other chemicals but warned that unless one knows about the exact ratio in which they should be used, a common man should not attempt doing so.
