KP, Fata still lack basic health facilities: Iftikhar

PESHAWAR: Awami National Party (ANP) senior leader and Rashid Hussain Shaheed Foundation Chairman Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Monday that the people in most parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas were still deprived of basic health facilities.
Speaking at a seminar on primary healthcare at Peshawar Press Club, he said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government had been following the policies of multi-national companies instead of making its own health policy.
The leader said that multi-national companies had fixed the price of a Rs10 medicine at Rs100 terming it injustice with the poor.
He said a strong mafia had decided to earn money by fixing higher prices of the life saving drugs and those have made the lives of poor miserable.
Mian Iftikhar alleged that the multi-national companies had also purchased the doctors and health policy makers through various tactics.
He said the treatment of even a common disease in Pakistan was beyond the affordability of a poor person due to the multinational pharmaceutical companies.
“I don’t want to criticise the Health Department, but want to point out lacunas in the health policy,” he said, adding “Rashid Shaheed Foundation also aims at helping poor people.”
He said they would raise funds in foreign countries as well for the welfare and prosperity of poor patients.