Sihat card ploy to divert funds to private pockets: Taj Haider

ByOur correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Senior leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Taj Haider Wednesday said that Sihat, Insaf Card launched by the government is yet another ploy of the present government to divert public funds into private pockets.

In a statement on Wednesday, Taj Haider said the payments that would ultimately be made by the government to private hospitals out of public funds can be much better spent on upgrading public sector hospitals and providing free treatment and medicines to all patients for all ailments.

“This is what the people’s government has done in Sindh where the most expensive treatments like liver and kidney transplants, cardiac surgery, cyber knife robotic treatment of cancer are being performed free of cost. Patients are given their required medicines free of cost in all public sector hospitals in Sindh,” he said.

Ex-Senator Taj Haider said that this free treatment in the Sindh Government hospitals is available to all Pakistanis. “Sixty percents of patients of government hospitals in Sindh come from the three other provinces, Federal Capital Area and even from war-torn Afghanistan.

Institutions like SIUT, NICVD, NICH and JPMC, Dow University are success stories that can be easily replicated in other provinces and by the Federal Government, provided there is a political will to serve the people,” he said.

He said the possibility of a corrupt collusion between private hospitals and State Life officials in Sihat, Insaf Cards cannot be ruled out. “State Life, too, is a public sector company whose resources belong to the people and cannot be squandered away through overbilling and fake billing of some private sector hospital,” he said.

Former Senator Taj Haider said that the destruction of public sector facilities in Education and Health has been carried out most systematically since Zia days in order to benefit the highly exploitative private sector institutions.” This was a tried method that has multiplied both the deprivation of the marginalised sections of our society and the profits of the exploiters,” he said.

He said Sindh’s success in reversing this trend has caused tremendous pain to the exploiters and now the government of the exploiters has come up with this deception of Sihat, Insaf Cards and that too in the name of the marginalised.

He said it was unfortunate that the Supreme Court disregarding the 18th Amendment of the Constitution gave a verdict to hand over three exemplary health institutions of the Sindh Government to the Federal Government. “The destruction of the Health Sector at the hands of an incompetent federal government and the resulting misery of the poor should also have received due consideration of the Supreme Court,” he said.

Ex-Senator Taj Haider hoped that the Supreme Court would be pleased to review its verdict in view of the constitutional requirements and the evidence of exemplary performance of these Institutions managed and financed by the provincial government.