Health security must be given more attention: Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has said the country’s helplessness against coronavirus proved that health security must be given the most attention after defence. The government should have serious consultations with the opposition parties to constitute a national narrative and national strategy to steer the country out of the crises, but Prime Minister Imran Khan is still trapped in the narcissism of his personality and celebrity status that he takes opposition’s advice as criticism, the JI chief said while addressing workers at the food and supplies distribution camp after leading penitence prayers on Friday.

Sirajul Haq warned that the government was standing on a red line and had no chance of mistake left. He said “Our health system should be sufficiently effective to counter epidemics or biological warfare at every level. Our health system has badly failed in terms of administration and planning.”

He said the government’s team lacked the abilities to counter the disaster of large magnitude. He demanded the government engage doctors and other health professionals having required abilities and provide them with world class protection.

He lamented that the developed world had failed to take necessary measures to counter the pandemic globally.

He said the county needed to establish quality field hospitals at the district level, and seal an area if more than five cases were reported in the area to screen and quarantine the affectees. He said N-95 masks should be immediately supplied to the affected areas and private sector should also be included in the measures to counter the corona spread. He also appealed to the masses to offer individual and collective repentance before the Almighty Allah to ward off the pandemic. He said corona had proved the failure of science and technology against natural calamities and also destroyed the artificial economy and all capitalist philosophies of economics.

He demanded the government come out with sufficient measures and relief package for the poor and daily wage workers, waive utility bills for those earning up to Rs25,000, and provide the masses with cheap sanitizer, soaps and masks.