Overseas treatment: Libyan war victims may get treatment in Pakistan

Sources say agreement between the two countries being negotiated.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan is considering providing medical care to hundreds of Libyan war victims at its hospitals, reliable sources revealed to The Express Tribune.

The proposal was made after an official Libyan delegation visited Islamabad to seek medical treatment of the victims at official and private medical centres across Pakistan.

According to sources, the proposal required an agreement between the two countries and negotiations are in progress between officials of the Libyan department for the welfare of war injured persons and the relevant departments of the federal government, in this regard.

According to the agreement, the Libyan government will bear all expenses for the medical care that will be provided to civilians who were wounded in the Libyan civil war in 2011.

Initially, treatment facilities will be arranged in government and major hospitals in Islamabad and later in hospitals in Lahore and Karachi.

An office will be set up in the Libyan Embassy in Islamabad to facilitate Pakistani visas for war victims once the agreement is finalised.

The exact number of victims who will be treated in Pakistan is yet to be decided but sources said they could be in hundreds and added that most of them were critically injured.

Tripoli had already sent hundreds of victims to different European and Middle Eastern countries for medical care in 2011 and 2012 but had to suspend the scheme after many hospitals allegedly over-charged them, according to an international media report.

The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) had decided it would provide healthcare to those wounded while fighting against former leader Muammar Qaddafi’s forces at hospitals abroad. Then Libyan prime minister Mahmoud Jibril told the BBC that the Global Health Programme would cost $400 million but would relieve some of the strain on Libya’s overworked hospitals.

Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagur told the broadcaster that the scheme had cost the NTC $800 million in one year.

“We have around 40,000 people out of the country. If you talk about the wounded, I would say only 10% to 15% of them are wounded,” Abu Shagur said, while explaining that many of the victims take three or four family members with them to the countries where they are being treated.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2013.