Cancer hospital proof quality healthcare can be provided: PM

Tells SKMCH fundraiser naysayers will never deter him from his goals

PESHAWER: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said setting up of a cancer hospital offering treatment free-of-charge is a major landmark for the country’s healthcare sector and proof that quality services can be provided to the masses.

“Despite the naysayers and the criticism, I strived hard to collect funds and fulfilled a lifelong dream by setting up the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (SKMCH&RC). With the help of the nation, we built the cancer hospital and successfully ran it as well,” said the prime minister while addressing a fundraiser ceremony for the hospital in Peshawar on Saturday.

He also lauded the people for their generous donations, which he said had continued to grow year-on-year.

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“The people in this country are very generous when it comes to charity. The donations continue to grow every year,” said the premier.

He said charity drives experience an uptick during the month of Ramazan. “Shaukat Khanum gets most of its donations in the holy month.”

Speaking about the current situation of the economy, he assured the people to believe in the elected government. “We will overcome the crisis and control the prices and for that we need the support of the entire nation,” the PM said.

The premier vowed to overcome the crisis using ‘the same tenacity and determination that made it possible to collect the funds for the cancer hospital and set it up’.

“I had only Rs10 million in the account when I launched the cancer hospital project worth Rs70 million,” he said, adding that the cancer hospital project faced crises on a weekly basis.

“Nonetheless, the project never stopped due to want of money and was completed in three years,” he said, while asking people to continue their support of the government.

He also asked those in attendance to pray that gas reserves are found off the coast of Karachi, which he said would fulfill the country’s energy needs for fifty years. Later in the day, the government said that offshore drilling had failed to discover any such reserves.

The premier also talked about the importance of reforming the healthcare sector to a point where treatment for all kinds of ailments were available in the country.

“When I mother contracted cancer, I had to take her abroad for treatment,” said PM Imran, adding that his vision was to ensure the provision of state-of-the-art health facilities available to the people.

He said that there were no plans to privatise government hosptials. “We will reform their management,” he asserted.

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“Shaukat Khanum hospital is benefitting not just the city where it is based but surrounding areas as well. We will make public hospitals equally efficacious,” he said.

Speaking about the issue of the province-wide protest of doctors in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the premier said he had asked K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to ensure that it doesn’t affect healthcare reforms.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Doctors Council on Wednesday had announced a province-wide strike in all hospitals and private clinics after the police failed to register a first information report (FIR) against the provincial health minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan and his security guards for allegedly thrashing an assistant professor at the surgical ward.

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