‘PTI has failed to establish modern hospital in KP’

LAHORE: Punjab Health Minister Kh Suleman Raffique has said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government has failed to establish a single hospital having modern healthcare facilities as the patients are coming to Punjab’s public hospitals due to the devastated condition of public hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“At least 15 percent of total budget in Punjab is being spent on health sector,” he said on Wednesday, according to a handout issued here.The minister said that from 30 percent to 40 percent patients admitted in Children Hospital, Lahore, were from KP. Similarly, a large number of patients from KP are getting medical treatment in the public hospitals of Punjab, he added. The minister claimed that “Tabdeeli Sarkar” was planning to cut Rs 3 billion health budget in the upcoming fiscal year. It seems that health is not the priority of KP government as no new projects are in government’s consideration except the construction of burn centres and cardiology laboratories in DHQs and THQs in the upcoming budget, he added.

Contrary to this, imparting the best health facilities is the first priority of the Punjab government. It’s the consequence of such Tabdeeli that hospitals in big cities of KP like Peshawar and Mardan have turned into the heaps of garbage, he said. Despite getting the status of a medical teaching institution, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, is deprived of the facility of a blood bank, the minister said.

Similarly, Mardan Medical Complex which is considered one of the biggest hospitals in KP has become a source of spreading jaundice due to the lack of disposable syringes and cannulas, he alleged. He said that in Lakki Marwat, the medicines with “Not for Sale” tags were being sold in private medical stores and markets.

The medicines for diabetes, rabies and snake bite are not available in hospitals, the minister said. The only public hospital of Havelian has no basic health facilities, he said, adding DHQ hospital in Chitral was in a dilapidated condition. Junk heaps can be spotted everywhere in the hospital and mother and childcare centres while three to four patients are adjusted on one bed, he said. There is only one nebulizer for all child patients.

Regardless of repeated announcements by the KP government, the burn unit in Saidu Teaching Hospital is still under construction, the Punjab minister said. Kohat, which has been awarded the status of a model city by the KP government, has the most tumbledown DHQ hospital having no medical equipment and surgical wards, the minister said, adding the masses of KP asked Khan Sahib to tell them the actual meaning of “change.”

On the other hand, real change can be witnessed in Punjab under the leadership of Khadim-e-Ala, the health minister said, adding health facilities were accessible to the common man in the province.

District health authorities have been set up at the local and district level. The infrastructure and machinery of five drug testing laboratories have been formed according to international standards, the minister claimed. Crackdown on spurious drugs is still on in the whole province. Steps are being taken for the renewal of GMP inspection of medicine manufacturing units and digital mapping and drug sale licence of all medical stores and pharmacies. More than Rs 1 billion have been spent for the health of mother and child in 11 districts for the last previous year. All the public hospitals and BHUs have been equipped with the latest medicines worth rupees 10 billion which used to be unapproachable for the common man in the past, the minister said.

Kh Suleman Raffique said another remarkable achievement of Punjab Khadim-e-Ala was the establishment of state-of-the-art Pakistan Kidney and Liver Transplant Institute and Research Centre for the poor patients. He said that an amount of Rs 16 billion had been allocated on priority basis for providing free-of-cost medicine in all the hospitals of the province. Similarly, an amount of Rs 500 million has been allocated for providing free-of-cost hepatitis medicines to the patients, the Punjab health minister concluded.