AKU : Heal your hospital before you heal your patients

to our gallivanting Caretaker
September 28, 2023
The train to hell
October 6, 2023
The on-going saga of AKU human rights and minimum wage violations, as reported to AKU and its response.
A citizen writes to AKU:
Dear Honorable physicians,           5th October
salam and greetings,
It is sad and painful for us, to once again write to AKU, for the fourth time in the last 2 months, highlighting the grave human rights violations, cruelty, exploitation and criminal violation of labour laws by an esteemed and respectable organisation like AKU towards its contracted janitors and private security guards. Kindly see two latest videos of 3rd October 23 placed below.
This and hundreds of other contracted janitors working in AKU Collection Centres received Rs17500, till last month, i.e. September 23 for performing 8 hour duty.
Kindly note, that the minimum wage in Pakistan, since 1st July 2022 was Rs25,000 for 8 hours and Rs50,000 for 12 hour duty.
Like wise,  the minimum wage in Pakistan, since 1st July 2023 is Rs32,000 for 8 hours and Rs64,000 for 12 hour duty.
How come AKU pretends that it has no clue of the poor peoples’ minimum wages (known to all grade 6 children). This is called exploitation and modern-day-slavery.
In any civilised country , the head of the institution would be behind bars for a very long time for under-cutting below the minimum legal wage and for causing such hardship, torture and misery to the most downtrodden segment.
How will AKU compensate the janitors (for the gap between 25K and 17.5K) since 1st July 2022 and for the gap between 32K and 17.5K from 1st July 2023.
If the AKU is too poor to make this backlog compensation, perhaps the highly distinguished, respectable and ethical faculty of AKU will come forward to pool in personal resources to make up for the illegal behaviour of AKU. That would be ethical and honourable and an example for the rest of Pakistan.
Likewise the security guards for 12 hour duty are being paid Rs 25,000 per month, while the minimum wage for 12 hours in Pakistan today  is Rs64,000. Kindly correct and compensate from 1st July 2022.
Can AKU, (or for that matter any other hospital) be trusted for healthcare of patients,  if it is engaged in such gross human rights violations and illegal practices that trample and crush  its lowest paid workers.
Respectfully,
Naeem Sadiq
For
Justice for the Voiceless
=======================
AKU’s threatening response:
On Thu, 5 Oct 2023 at 05:42, Sohail Kassamali <sohail.kassamali@aku.edu> wrote:

Dear Mr. Sadiq,

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

I serve as the General Counsel of the Aga Khan University and your email(s) have been forwarded to me.  Although, we take strong exception to your statements (which are emphatically denied), please note that AKU is fully compliant with all the laws and applicable regulation(s) and any procedural modalities of payments made to/by the third-party service providers have been addressed. We shall not entertain any further suppositions from you.

You are requested to remove the unauthorized and illegal videos from you tube within 48 hours together with all the spurious content on social media (which we have been patiently observing but our patience shall not tantamount to waiver or consent of your disparaging libel and slander) , we shall be constrained to exercising our legal right(s) as stated hereinabove.  

Sohail Kassamali

  =================

Citizen writes back to explain that AKU needs to stop its violations.

Dear Mr. Sohail Kassamali,

I was happy to receive your email, but sad that while it adopts a threatening approach, it remains  miles away from truth, from facts, from law, from ethics and from the actual violations being caused.

I want to reiterate our deep respect for AKU, and are deeply pained by the violations it is engaged in.
We have been specific, in telling you, what you pay, what is the law, what is the violation and provided you the actual facts / evidence, of which, numerous samples  our group “justice for the voiceless” has collected over past many months. We have explained what are the minimum wages as of today for 8 hours and for 12 hours. We have given you evidence of what you pay.  Thus your generic non-specific , all encompassing statement, “please note that AKU is fully compliant with all the laws and applicable regulation(s) and any procedural modalities of payments made to/by the third-party service providers have been addressed.”, comes as a huge surprise and is not becoming of your great institution. 
We expected that your organisation will thank us for highlighting this issue.  For no organisation can be allowed to suck the blood of the poor people of Pakistan, least of all a most respected and esteemed organisation like AKU.
We are happy to go to any level of law, or to  Pakistan government or even to make a presentation to  His Highness, the Prince Karim Aga Khan,  to plead that a wrong is being committed and it must be set right. None of this ought to be necessary, in view of plain facts quoted by us in our letter.
I assure you we mean well for AKU and for the poorest exploited section of Pakistan. Kindly cool down and try to understand that we are only stating facts and they must be addressed. Till that time, we would like to approach all forms of media including newspapers and TV to highlight the plight and the human rights of the poor people of Pakistan serving under 3rd party service providers at  AKU.
Warm regards and
Respectfully,
Naeem Sadiq
for
 Justice for the Voiceless.