Imran visits LRH to inquire after injured

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Tuesday visited the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and inquired after the health of the victims of ‘mini-cyclone’ that hit Peshawar and its adjoining areas on Sunday.
He visited the LRH along with his wife Reham Khan and met the injured and their attendants.Majority of victims of the devastating windstorm were shifted to the LRH, which has a vast Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department.
Later, talking to reporters, Imran Khan said he postponed his visit to the LRH on the advice of the doctors as the visits by the VIPs affected the job of the doctors tending to patients.He, however, said he was in touch with Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and the ministers and kept himself updated about the situation and relief work in the affected areas.
“The VIP movement on such occasions always hampers patients’ healthcare. I think unnecessary visits should be discouraged to ensure smooth treatment of the critically-injured people,” the PTI chairman suggested. To improve healthcare services, he said, laws had been passed and added efforts were underway to implement the laws in letter and spirit to get the desired results. The PTI leaders and provincial Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai were also present during his visit at the LRH.
Imran Khan said that a US-based Pakistani doctor Dr Nausherawan Burki has decided to help the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in improving patients’ healthcare.He said initially he would start his work from the LRH and later extend his reforms to other public sector health institutions of the province.
Imran Khan said Dr Nausherawan had helped build the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre Lahore and he would now work with senior doctors in KP to bring in improvement in health sector.
“The LRH will become a model healthcare institution in the country,” the PTI leader hoped.After implementation of new laws, he said health institutions, including LRH will be operated by an independent Board of Governors (BoGs).
“I came here in the afternoon deliberately as I didn’t want to affect patients’ care,” he said.In response to criticism of their political opponents that Pervaiz Khattak didn’t even bother to visit the affected areas or the hospital, Imran said that the PTI was not interested in photo sessions and media publicity but wanted to help the people.
He said it had been realised that heavy rush of people and VIP visits during emergency situation always affected doctors’ job and patient care.“The ultimate sufferers of such visits are always the people who require urgent attention of the doctors,” he said.
Our correspondent adds from Islamabad: Imran Khan said in a statement that real change was coming in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in substantive ways, not in artificial dramas of mega projects that do not deliver.
Imran said a case in point was in school education, where KP’s education policy was not only making great headway to provide every child with basic quality education but its new system was being cited as a model to be emulated in developed countries.
Imran called on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to investigate the ill-conceived project of Danish schools.He highlighted that in a country where 6.2 million children at the primary level were out of school, KP had the highest net primary enrolment recorded according to a new report - with a figure of 83 percent, followed by Islamabad Capital Territory with 71 percent and Punjab lagging behind with 70 percent.
In Balochistan, he continued, the enrolment was slightly more than 50 percent while in Sindh it wais over 60 percent.Imran also referred to the new book that came out last month by Sir Michael Barber entitled ‘How to Run a Government’ in which he advised how the UK could learn from innovative approaches to make government effective and in the education sector he cited Khyber Pakhtunkhwa use of virtual ‘dashboards’ to monitor its school system in real time.
“This international recognition of the new PTI government’s policy in the education sector is vindication of its commitment to bring change to improve the lives of the people of KP and provide quality education to every child, not just the elite,” he maintained.
The PTI chief said instead of trying to destroy the environment by concretisation of urban centres through building flyovers, the Punjab government should have focused on improving the lives of the ordinary people by uplifting them through quality education for all children.
“In this context, the drama of the Danish schools has proven to be a total failure as it has detracted funds from going to all government schools across Punjab especially the most deprived areas of the province,” he charged.
He demanded that there should be an investigation into the Danish schools project by NAB as many controversies and questions surround this ill-conceived project.Imran said that the real change and progress did not come through high profile mega projects but through providing meaningful change for people by giving them equal opportunity through quality access to education and health especially to the children and youth who are the future of this country.