Provincial Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid said that the specialist doctors are reluctant to serve in the rural areas and therefore government is facing difficulty in this regard. She was responding to the queries of lawmakers in question-hour during the session of Punjab Assembly on Thursday. During the question-hour related to the Primary and Secondary Healthcare department, PPP lawmaker Shazia Abid said that no specialist doctor was appointed in district Rajanpur during last two years as all the appointments were made before 2018. Health Minister admitted that the government is facing difficulty in this issue as specialist doctors are reluctant to serve in villages. There are 84 seats of doctors in Rajanpur district and 70 are occupied while remaining 14 seats will also be filled soon, Dr Yasmin said.
Earlier, the session of Punjab Assembly started after the delay of two hours from its scheduled time with Mian Muhammad Shafi in the chair. The seriousness of the lawmakers hailing from the largest House of Pakistan can be gauged by the fact that there were only 11 MPAs at the outset of the session on Thursday.
Some heated arguments were also exchanged between the health minister and MPAs of the opposition as they accused the health department of submitting wrong answers to their questions in the House. PML-N MPA from Sahiwal Malik Arshad said that the health department gave wrong answer to his question but his claim was refuted by Dr Yasmin. Another MPA of PML-N from Okara Iftikhar Chhachhar also raised similar concern of getting wrong answer to his question. The Chair asked the health minister to submit a report in the House by holding impartial inquiry of submission of wrong answers by her department. Senior most lawmaker of Punjab Assembly Saeed Akbar Niwani, who became MPA for seventh time, said that he has been witnessing such lackluster attitude of departments for last 35 years and it must be fixed now. Meanwhile, general debate over the recently enacted ‘Tahfuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam’ act was also started in the House. Opening the debate over the act, MPA Maulana Ilyas Chinioti said that the identification of religion must also be cleared on the CNIC. He applauded the Chief Minister, Speaker Punjab Assembly and all the members of the special committee who played their role in drafting the said bill that is meant for safeguarding the sanctity of Holy Prophet (PBUH), his companions and the Holy Quran. Parliamentary Leader of Rah-e-Haq party Maulana Muawia Azam said that the Punjab Assembly has rightly proved that it is the most active House of Pakistan that always plays its role for the sanctity of Islam. Surprisingly, Law Minister Raja Basharat opposed the suggestions given by PTI’s own MPA and Parliamentary Secretary Nazir Chohan who wanted to bring some amendments in the bill that has already been passed. It is not suitable to bring amendments in the bill now that is already passed and Nazir Chohan was supposed to raise the issue the day when it was passed, law minister said.