LAHORE - Prime Minister Imran Khan has said protests against proposed health reforms were big injustice with the ailing humanity.

Addressing a fund raising ceremony at Shaukat Khanum Hospital and Research Centre on Saturday, the PM said that health reforms were aimed at improving working of public sector hospitals on the pattern of private healthcare facilities.

Imran Khan spent a busy day in Lahore. He also co-chaired cabinet meeting along with Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar.

“We are bringing a system of reward and punishment. We will increase salaries of doctors and other staff. We want to run public sector hospitals on the pattern of private healthcare centres. It doesn’t mean we are privatizing the hospitals. We are only improving working for the benefit of the poor patients. Waste dumps at hospitals show magnitude of poor management. Working of hospitals will not improve until changing the mindset of administration,” Imran Khan said, adding, creating hurdles in health reforms was uncalled for.

He was all praise for Prof Faisal Sultan, Chief Executive of SKH, and his team for ensuring provision of quality facilities to patients. He said that 75 to 80 percent of the free patients were getting the same treatment given to the paying ones. The premier said that every patient there was a VIP. He said that the same culture would be introduced at public sector hospitals.

Says culture to be introduced at public hospitals that every patient would be VIP

After five years, he said, people would witness the government hospitals providing treatment at par with the SKH. He said even the doctors would wish to serve at public sector hospitals.

Imran said SKH Peshawar had been equipped with the best radiation facility in upper parts of the country. He said that groundbreaking of SKH Karachi would be held soon. The prime minister said that it would be developed as an international standard hospital.

At Al-Qadir University Sohawa, he said, students would be taught ideology of Pakistan. He hoped the institution would produce future leaders.

Chairing cabinet meeting, the PM stressed the need of implementing different models of public-private partnership for reducing burden on cash strapped government. He said that enhanced participation of private sector was necessary as the government had limited resources to carry out development works. He stressed the need of focusing on creating maximum job opportunities for asset of the country, human capital. He directed giving due attention to the agriculture sector, backbone of the economy. The prime minister suggested launching projects for increasing crop yield. He said that huge spending of Rs12 billion on projects like Metro Bus was big injustice. The amount, he said, could have been spent on education and health. He stressed the need of taking measures for bringing in foreign and local investment. Imran said the government was focusing on ease of doing business to encourage investment. He directed facilitating the investors through one-window operations.