PESHAWAR - PTI Chairman Imran Khan has announced to establish a 500-bed hospital for gynaecology in Peshawar, having the same standard of management like Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital and Research Centre.

“Provision of best health facilities to the KP people is among the top priorities of the provincial government and now we, after great efforts, have improved the standard of government hospitals in the province”, he remarked this while addressing a seminar on healthcare in Peshawar on Friday.

He said that after bringing about merit in government departments, the culture of nepotism and favouritism has been discouraged in the province and almost 10,000 health professionals have been recruited in various government hospitals with handsome salary packages which will improve the healthcare system at district level.

The PTI chief said that they have taken a number of steps to depoliticise the government department and the reformed provincial police is the best example in this regard.

He paid tributes to KP Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai for successful launching of Insaf Health Card Programme which will provide healthcare facilities to half of the population of the province. He said that the programme would be extended to the entire population to facilitate the poor for getting treatment facilities. 

Imran said that due to extreme poverty, a single patient affects the whole family as the poor segment of the population lacks financial resources to face medical emergency. He hoped this health insurance scheme would give great relief to the poor ailing people of the province.

He said that despite lack of resources, PTI workers will collect donation to complete healthcare facilities in the province.

He added that after police department, improvement has been brought in government schools and 34,000 students shifted from private schools to government schools. He said that bring reforms in every sector is a matter of challenge for the PTI government but after passing through various difficult stages now they have been succeeded to improve the system. 

He said that without deliverance of justice no nation can get success and for that reason PTI is struggling to ensure merit and rule of law in the country.

About Panama Leaks, Imran Khan hoped that the Supreme Court would take the matter to its logical conclusion. He hoped that PTI would win the next general elections and will form the government in the centre.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in his address said that an elite-dominated system could not deliver for the hapless people. He said that political interference in the past destroyed public sector institutions and, therefore, the entire system collapsed. His government, he added, has depoliticised and revamped institutions thus strengthened the system of governance through these public sector institutions.

He said that when he started revamping the public sector institutions, making them autonomous and empowered them to make decisions for the efficient treatment of the poor, the system was resisted. First the doctors were reluctant to accept responsibility but when they started feeling the better impact of the change they accepted it, he added.

He said his government stopped the whimsical decision-making because PTI was voted for a change particularly by the youth. The youth was dead sure that the politicised system did not have the capacity to deliver. This was a challenge that PTI accepted for bringing reforms and removing all obstruction, he added. His government, he added, had a record legislation to discourage corruption, loot and plunder, favouritism and therefore upheld the rule of law and encouraged merit-based decision-making.

He said RTI was meant to make the government machinery accountable. The RTI law made mandatory services time bound and the conflict of interest barred the rulers and bureaucrats to misuse power and authority. He said that it was strange that there are nations which did not have the resources for development but still they are at the forward lines of their development but unfortunately we have all the resources but we are at the bottom.

This he attributed to the leadership crisis adding that when he took over, the public run hospitals were mismanaged, the doctors were reluctant to take their responsibilities. His government brought reforms, increased the salaries of doctors and others staff, brought them at par with the doctors in the developed countries and thereafter they started delivering. Our concerns were to ensure efficient healthcare to all areas of the province, he added.

Pervez Khattak said his government introduced Sehat Insaf Card providing free treatment upto 0.5 million to almost 1.8 million families that constituted 51 per cent of the total population of the province. His government brought the monitoring mechanism for the doctors and teachers, he added. He said that there was a mindset, and because of that certain people did not work and they were not accountable to anybody therefore the institutions collapsed.

He said his government gives autonomy, reformed the institutions, rendered them apolitical and introduced a system of reward and punishment. Our system now did not have the space for wrong. He said that power and authority should be used for the public welfare and his government was open to suggestions that could further improve the delivery.

The chief minister’s speech was once disrupted by PTI workers’ slogans of ‘go Nawaz go’ when power was suspended in the Pearl Continental Hotel Hall. The chief minister said that it will happen definitely as it is not the provincial subject but a federal subject coming under the domain of PML-N.

KP Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai and others also addressed the event.