Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) General Secretary Liaqat Baloch alleged on Thursday that the Punjab government’s dengue drives were only confined to advertisement campaigns.
The JI GS was on a visit to major hospitals of Lahore including Jinnah, Ittefaq, Sheikh Zayed and Services Hospital to enquire after the health of dengue patients there. He also visited senior journalist and Urdu Digest Chief Editor Altaf Hasan Qureshi and Agricultural Development Bank President Zaka Ashraf at private hospitals.
Meanwhile, he discussed the flood situation with the JI Punjab chief Dr Syed Waseem Akhtar and JI provincial secretary Nazir Ahmed Janjua and directed them to set up relief camps for collecting relief goods for the flood affected people of Sindh.
Talking to reporters at the Surriyya Azeem Hospital, he said dengue virus was spreading quickly, causing anxiety and insecurity among the people. He said he had visited major city hospitals during the day and found the arrangements unsatisfactory. Preventive medicines were also not available at the camps set up by the government, he added.
The JI GS said hundreds of doctors in the province were unemployed but the Punjab government had called doctors from Sri Lanka to run the dengue drive.
The incapability of government was similar in Sindh, he said, adding that Karachi had been submerged in water because of rains and the rest of the Sindh was under floods with losses amounting to billions of rupees but the government there was doing very little to help people.