Opposition leader stands with protesting NICVD workers

Urges Sindh government to release their allowances, arrears

KARACHI:

Employees of the National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases (NICVD) again came out of wards and OPDs brandishing banners, chanting slogans, demanding payment of coronavirus health-risk allowance.

The protestors said though they performed duties during pandemic, risking their lives, the government has yet to release the promised allowance.

Sindh Assembly Opposition Leader Haleem Adil Sheikh demanded that the Sindh government pay health risk, other allowances and arrears to protesting employees of the National Institute of Cardio Vascular Disease (NICVD) in Karachi.

The opposition leader, accompanied by MPA Saeed Afridi, PTI leader Gohar Khattak and others, paid a visit to NICVD to express solidarity with protesting employees of the institute. They assured the workers that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf will join their protest if their genuine demands would not be met.

He said that due to the non-availability of stents at the institute, a number of patients were treated with balloon angioplasty from 17 to 25 September which was tantamount to deceiving patients and a clear violation of medical ethics.

The annual budget of NICVD was Rs12 billion, while in the last few years they have also received additional funds amounting to Rs41 billion. “Yet, the institute is being run on Zakat over the previous six months,’ Haleem Adil Sheikh observed.

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He alleged that Rs7 billion out of the annual budget of Rs12 billion were being embezzled as the PPP Sindh government had turned NICVD into a hotbed of corruption. “Its Executive Director Dr Nadeem Qamar was patron of all the thieves.”

Haleem said that Qamar’s monthly salary was over Rs6 million and he had received Rs256 million in the last three years, while other directors of NICVD were getting lucrative monthly allowances. “At the same time, workers are being denied health risk, utility and other allowances as well as their arrears.

Around 7,000 employees of NICVD are entitled to get a monthly allowance of Rs17,000 each, while there are arrears of over Rs100 million as their due.”

The leader of the opposition said that there were a number of corruption cases against NICVD seniors under proceeding in courts.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2022.