Daily Times

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has urged the Sindh government to adopt Prime Minister Imran Khan’s National Health Card programme for effective provision of health facilities to all and sundry.

Speaking during ‘Meet the Press’ programme at the Lahore Press Club here on Sunday, he said the National Health Card programme would incur half the amount Sindh government is currently spending on provision of health facilities, adding that a huge sum of funds is spent on construction of hospital buildings only while a medical superintendent is hired for millions of rupees by the Sindh government. He said this amount should be spent on medical treatment in a better way by introducing National Health Card.

The information minister said the health card covers a health insurance of one million rupees of a family at private and public sector hospitals, adding that it is tracked through National Identity Card (NIC) and it will take care of all hospitalization expenses of journalists. He said journalists should stay assured that their health needs have been taken care of by the government.

“The National Health Card will benefit the middle-class and the white-collared persons the most,” he said, adding that the rich would hardly need it as they get medical treatment from abroad.

To a query, the minister said the private sector hospitals were vital for provision of healthcare facilities; otherwise, health facilities could not be provided by the public sector hospitals alone to such a large population. He invited the private sector to invest in the health sector so that medical facilities could be provided to maximum number pf people.

Stressing the need for keeping pace with time, Fawad sCh asked the print media industry to adopt digitalisation as the world was fast changing, adding that the 5G technology would further revolutionise the world and the print media needed to adopt new technologies so that it did not suffer losses.

He said that Rs 12 billion advertisement had been shifted from the traditional print media to the digital media during the past year. He renewed a pledge to provide Rs 5 lakh loan to the digital media journalists on the recommendation of the press clubs.

The information minister also announced setting up of a modern digital media lab at Lahore Press Club so that journalist could make the best out of it.

The information minister said that journalists might also benefit from the Prime Minsiter’s Low- Income Housing Scheme, adding all members of press clubs could avail soft loans to build a home of their own in Prime Minsiter’s schemes.

To a question about no increase in salaries of media workers for the last seven years, Fawad said the businesses had earned Rs 929 billion in profit on the stock exchange last year, adding that the profits of media houses grew by 30-40 per cent but the media workers did not benefit from these profits as their salaries were not increased. He urged owners of the media house that the trickle down effects of their boon should be shifted to the workers as well.

Stressing the need for a serious political debate in the country’s media, he said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was almost forced to resign after his office violated the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions while the public was made to follow the law, adding that, in our country, one section of media had published an article by former finance minister Ishaq Dar who had fled the country after embezzling billions of rupees of the public. He said how come a person, who wreaked havoc on the country’s economy, could give lectures on the economy.

On the issue of Nawaz Sharif’s return to the country to face courts, he said that people like Nawaz Sharif must return to the country as they were responsible for the financial mess the country was in. He said the Nawaz Sharif issue was directly linked to price-hikes, adding that the country, from 1947 to 2008, took loans of seven trillion rupees and all projects including the motorways, nuclear plants, dams, airports, cities like Islamabad and Gwadar were completed between this period. But $23 billion loans were secured from 2008 to 2018 period. He said Nawaz Sharif and others must be brought back to the country and made accountable for their misdeeds.