Shehbaz Gill laments 'filthy' Sindh hospitals
Gill lashes out at PPP’s provincial govt after visiting DHQ, Jacobabad
SCREENGRAB
JACOBABAD:
Special Assistant to the PM on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill on Sunday took a broadside at the Sindh government for the “filthy” conditions of hospitals in the province.
The SAPM visited the District Headquarters Hospital, Jacobabad a day after PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari challenged the federal government to point out even a single hospital in any province other than Sindh that was at par with the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) in Karachi in terms of standards.
“I have seen with my own eyes that the conditions of hospitals in Sindh are worse than those in Balochistan,” Gill said after visiting the hospital.
“The biggest hospital in Jacobabad is in ruins. Let alone coronavirus, you can’t treat a common ailment here,” he added.
The SAPM said unlike Bilawal’s claims, patients were being brought to the District Headquarters Hospital, Jacobabad on donkey carts instead of ambulances.
“People are being treated like animals here. It’s not only filthy, but the ceiling of the [hospital’s] cardiology centre looks like it might collapse anytime.”
Gill said the ground reality was that the PPP’s corruption and apathy had pushed the back province by centuries.
“The performance of the PPP government [in Sindh] is limited to news conferences and statements. It considers hurling allegations at the federal government as performance,” he maintained. “In contrast, the federal government is providing financial assistance, ventilators and other medical equipment across the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
Addressing a news conference Saturday, Bilawal had accused the Centre of not providing assistance to the provinces needed to combat the pandemic.
On the federal government taking control of three hospitals in Karachi, the NICVD, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), the scion of the Bhutto dynasty said the province would surrender the three medical facilities to the Centre if it could identify even one hospital in any other province that was better than the city’s hospital for cardiovascular diseases.
Commenting on the federal budget for the next fiscal year, Bilawal said the outlay had been rejected by all political parties.
“The budget presented by the government gives the impression that Covid-19 is not an issue for the country and people are not prone to it,” he said.
“There is no preference in the budget for combating the coronavirus, spending resources to save lives of people and improving the economic situation,” he added.
“The federal government should have announced a health or Covid-19 package for every province in the budget and the country has to increase its healthcare and testing capacity.”
Bilawal noted that the government had given preference to development over health at a time when the people in the country were fighting a pandemic.
“During a pandemic, the government is more interested in repairing roads.”
He claimed that the Rs70 billion budget earmarked by the government to fight the Covid-19 had been kept as “slush funds” for PTI MNAs.
Special Assistant to the PM on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill on Sunday took a broadside at the Sindh government for the “filthy” conditions of hospitals in the province.
The SAPM visited the District Headquarters Hospital, Jacobabad a day after PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari challenged the federal government to point out even a single hospital in any province other than Sindh that was at par with the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) in Karachi in terms of standards.
“I have seen with my own eyes that the conditions of hospitals in Sindh are worse than those in Balochistan,” Gill said after visiting the hospital.
“The biggest hospital in Jacobabad is in ruins. Let alone coronavirus, you can’t treat a common ailment here,” he added.
The SAPM said unlike Bilawal’s claims, patients were being brought to the District Headquarters Hospital, Jacobabad on donkey carts instead of ambulances.
“People are being treated like animals here. It’s not only filthy, but the ceiling of the [hospital’s] cardiology centre looks like it might collapse anytime.”
Gill said the ground reality was that the PPP’s corruption and apathy had pushed the back province by centuries.
“The performance of the PPP government [in Sindh] is limited to news conferences and statements. It considers hurling allegations at the federal government as performance,” he maintained. “In contrast, the federal government is providing financial assistance, ventilators and other medical equipment across the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.”
Addressing a news conference Saturday, Bilawal had accused the Centre of not providing assistance to the provinces needed to combat the pandemic.
On the federal government taking control of three hospitals in Karachi, the NICVD, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH), the scion of the Bhutto dynasty said the province would surrender the three medical facilities to the Centre if it could identify even one hospital in any other province that was better than the city’s hospital for cardiovascular diseases.
Commenting on the federal budget for the next fiscal year, Bilawal said the outlay had been rejected by all political parties.
“The budget presented by the government gives the impression that Covid-19 is not an issue for the country and people are not prone to it,” he said.
“There is no preference in the budget for combating the coronavirus, spending resources to save lives of people and improving the economic situation,” he added.
“The federal government should have announced a health or Covid-19 package for every province in the budget and the country has to increase its healthcare and testing capacity.”
Bilawal noted that the government had given preference to development over health at a time when the people in the country were fighting a pandemic.
“During a pandemic, the government is more interested in repairing roads.”
He claimed that the Rs70 billion budget earmarked by the government to fight the Covid-19 had been kept as “slush funds” for PTI MNAs.