Daily Times

LAHORE: Lawmakers from both treasury and opposition benches Tuesday strongly opposed the Punjab government’s move to privatise hospitals.

The said that planned outsourcing of hospitals was a big failure on the part of the Shehbaz Sharif government.

During the Punjab Assembly’s Question Hour session related to the Primary and Secondary Health Care Department, legislators rejected all the claims of the provincial minister Khawaja Imran Nazir that they were out sourcing the hospitals for the quality treatment of patients.

Health Minister answering different queries, especially from Mian Rafique of the ruling party and Faiza Malik of opposition, told the house that they had just outsourced the management of the Raiwing Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital to the Indus Hospital Trust with an intention to provide quality medical treatment to patients.

The minister also told the House in his written reply that all the employees of health department were now on the disposal of the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer and the District Health Authority. He also confirmed that there was no more employee of health department in the said hospital.

Khawaja Imran Nazir said that there were so many health related problems in the province of Punjab and government couldn’t resolve these issues without the help of the private sector and that was why it had planned to privatize medical labs services of hospitals.

He said that according to the “Wish List” of him, all medical facilities should be provided to patients in hospitals but unfortunately, the situation is different. He said that the government was trying to provide free of cost medical facilities at the door step of the citizens.

However, a comrade legislator belonging to the ruling Nawaz League from Toba Take Singh constituency Mian Rafique as well as Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) legislator Faiza Ahmad Malik while disagreed with the minister over his claims clarifying the government’s move to outsource hospitals.

Mian Rafique said that government had planned to outsource public hospitals just to oblige some private organizations. He said that this very step of the government would badly hit the poor. The treasury member said that after outsourcing the public sector institutes’ services, the government had factually accepted its failure to run the hospitals.

PPP’s Faiza Malik while criticising the privatization policy of Shahbaz Sharif government said that it was strange that government had itself accepted that it has failed to provide medical facilities to citizens. She added that if the government lacks the ability to run the hospitals it should also privatize the health department too.

During the session, Opposition Leader Main Mehmoodur Rasheed on a point of order asked the government to clarify whether Abid Boxer had been handed over to the Pakistani government from Interpol or not. He also demanded the government that it should constitute a judicial commission to probe allegations against him. Anyhow, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah was not present in the House so no proper response was given.

The House also adopted two resolutions regarding misusage of injections for getting extra milk from milk giving animals like buffalos, cows, sheep, goats, and camels and to provide a lifetime passport to legislators. Meanwhile, a resolution for constructing new water reservoirs in the province was rejected.

Published in Daily Times, February  21^st 2018.