The decision of the Punjab government to outsource the provision of health facilities in the province is clearly a confession of its abject failure to provide even nominal health facilities to all and sundry, said President PPP Central Punjab, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo, in a statement issued Thursday.
He pointed out that in the government hospitals neither doctors were available nor medicines, and emergencies had been reduced to the status of theoretical and misnomer. Medicines were also not easily available.
He referred to a case where a very senior doctor of the Government Mayo Hospital had to be rushed to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology for treatment because the equipment at Mayo hospital was out of order. That is how it has been for the last many years and the Health Department did not bother releasing any funds for its repair, he said.
He said that in the rural areas the Basic Health Units (BHUs) were in pathetic conditions because in most of the cases, doctors had not been appointed and premises were being used by influential people in the areas.