ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on Thursday, said that economy was not more important than the human lives.

In a video-link meeting with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa party office bearers and medical professionals, he said that a welfare state could never subscribe to the narrative that anything could be a bigger priority than human lives.

The representative medical organizations of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa jointly demanded an end to the privatization of healthcare facilities in the province during the meeting.

The demand was made through a joint resolution passed during a meeting presided over by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told the meeting that there could never be any compromise on protection of frontline workers and directed the PPP Coronavirus Relief Committee to provide as much of protective gears to doctors in KPK as possible.

He said that PPP opposed privatisation of hospitals in KP as well as across the country pointing out that the private healthcare system had failed worldwide after COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now it is the responsibility of the federal government to help the provinces increase the testing capacity for the coronavirus, in case the doctors at hospitals continue to go in isolation, it will have a negative impact on health sector,” he added.

During the meeting a joint resolution was passed by PPP, the doctors and the paramedical organizations, which unanimously demanded a full-time Health Minister in KPK.

The resolution expressed concern that the PTI government fought doctors instead of fighting coronavirus crisis. It said that KPK Health Task Force chief Nowsherawan Burki could not be successful in his attempt to run the provincial set-up through Skype from the United States of America, demanding his immediate removal declaring him the root cause of destruction of health system in KPK.

The resolution further demanded that 3,000 nurses should be hired in KPK to fill the gap and those already in service should immediately be regularized. The resolution  also demanded that the medical doctors in KPK should also be given risk allowance.

The resolution pointed out that the KPK had the lowest number of tests facilities and rampant deaths from Coronavirus were a matter of grave concern demanding that the automated testing machines should be provided in coronavirus testing laboratories.

The joint resolution also demanded that the privatisation of healthcare facilities in KPK should immediately be stopped.