K-P health minister vows to defend reforms’ agenda

Shahram Tarakai says PTI’s manifesto includes revolutionary changes in the health, education, police and other sectors

PESHAWAR: Even as the PTI-led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health ministry faces a litany of legal challenges in different courts, the ministry has vowed to continue with its plan of implementing a host of reforms in the sector across the province.

Addressing a news conference at the Health Secretariat on Monday, Health Minister Shahram Tarakai reiterated that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) manifesto included revolutionary changes in the health, education, police and other sectors – regardless of the obstacles.

“We will not step back even an inch and will continue,” the minister declared, referring to different cases filed against the ministry in courts, specifically a case which is currently being heard against Dr Nausherwan Burki, the chairman of the board of governors of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

A top advisor on health to the K-P government and termed by some to be the behind-the-scenes health czar of PTI in the province, Dr Burki is being defended by the government in courts.

Tarakai, in another rally supporting Dr Burki’s controversial appointment, stated that services of all the members of the board of governors at all medical teaching institutions in the province were hired free of cost, adding that if someone was offering their services, it should be appreciated rather condemned.

The minister, who refused to talk specifically about Dr Burki’s case since it was sub-judice, stated that Dr Burki was serving the people after travelling all the way from the United States on his own and even paying for his own boarding and lodging.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2017.