Awami Muslim League (AML) President Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Saturday said the issue of dengue virus could be resolved if President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif donated one percent of their total savings.
He further advised Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to allow doctors to focus instead of suspending them. Addressing a news conference at the National Press Club, he said the hospitals in Punjab had no facility and required machinery to test the dengue virus as the National Institute of Health (NIH) was conducting all the tests for the province.
He said the Punjab government did not spend a single penny to overcome the virus, adding that platelets, which were the main source of treatment to stop bleeding and death in dengue fever cases, were not available in most of the hospitals and the patients had to purchase them from private setups by paying hefty amounts.
“The platelets generating machines should immediately be provided to the hospitals” he demanded. “If the government can import onions within a night than, why it is reluctant to import the required machinery for dengue virus in the country,” he questioned. Sheikh said the government should impose emergency in all the hospitals, including Rawalpindi and Islamabad, and ensure availability of sufficient budget for dengue fever at disposal.
He accused the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for not taking any precautionary measures to protect the province from the deadly virus, adding that the hospitals of Islamabad and Rawalpindi would experience additional burden, if dengue virus started affecting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said the hospitals situated in twin cities were already working beyond their capacity to treat the dengue patients and the situation would worsen if the epidemic also hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He said despite the tall claims made about taking measures to control the dengue outbreak, they had not provided any money to the district health officers because of which they were unable to perform their duties. “What can the doctors do if the medicine and spray provided to the patients by government appears substandard,” Sheikh alleged, adding that the spray used by the government for fumigation in different cities was adulterated.
He asked the government to ensure the dengue spray in all those areas from where the majority of patients have been reported. “The government should provide sufficient resources to the hospitals for control on dengue fever epidemic in the affected districts,” he asserted. Commenting on the devastating floods in Sindh, the AML chief said the prevailing corruption in the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the apathy of Sindh politicians had catapulted the province in a whirlpool of problems.
He alleged that the stakeholders of Sindh had constructed their own small dams of, which resulted in unprecedented destruction.
