Godil’s request for treatment abroad on state expenses rejected

KARACHI: The National Assembly Secretariat has turned down a request by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement legislator, Abdur Rashid Godil, for treatment abroad, saying that the policy of sending public representatives and government officials abroad for medical treatment had been revoked by the prime minister.
Muttahida MNA Rashid Godil was fatally injured in an armed attack on his car near the Bahadurabad area of Karachi on August 18, 2015, in which his driver was killed while the MNA’s wife remained unhurt.
He was shifted to the Liaquat National Hospital for treatment where a team of doctors and surgeons provided him medical treatment, but one of the bullets remained in his body and could not be extracted because there were some risks in doing so.
On the advice of doctors, the family of the Muttahida MNA had been planning to shift him to the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in the United Kingdom for extraction of the bullet from his ribcage, and in this regard, Rashid Godil had applied to the National Assembly Secretary for medical treatment abroad on state expenses, but his application was turned down a couple of days back.
Referring to a request by the Muttahida MNA through a fax to the National Assembly Secretariat, an official of the assembly secretariat said that the policy of sending public representatives and government officials abroad for treatment was revoked in February 1997 by the then Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif.
“No such requests can be entertained either by the Ministry of Health, Government of Pakistan, or by the provincial governments,” the official added.
Meanwhile, Rashid Godil on Friday visited the Liaquat National Hospital for his medical checkup amid tight security where doctors removed dressings on his wounds and declared him healthy and his recovery satisfactory.
The Muttahida MNA was taken to the hospital in a wheelchair, but he appeared quite healthy despite having suffered damage to one of his lungs and a bullet still in his ribcage.