LAHORE: Prime Minister Imran Khan Saturday said that the government would not tolerate any hurdle in its endeavour of reforming the public sector hospitals to ensure the provision of quality healthcare services to the poor people.
Addressing a fundraiser of Shaukat Khanam Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH) here, the prime minister, who arrived here on a daylong visit, said those who were impeding the reformation of the government hospitals were, in fact, hurting the country.
He said the services at the public sector hospitals could not be improved until a carrot and stick policy was implemented there to reward the competent people and get rid of those who showed inertia.
He said no government system could work in the absence of such a policy and people would never be able to get quality treatment. He said currently, the waste dumps showed the magnitude of poor management in government hospitals.
The prime minister said as part of this reformation process, good doctors would be given attractive salaries and best talent would be hired.
He assured that the government was not going to privatize the public sector hospitals but planned to change their management system to bring in quality services and ensure quality services for the poor people.
He said after five years, people would witness the government hospitals providing the medical treatment to people at par with the SKMCH and even the doctors would also yearn to join those hospitals.
He told the gathering that at SKMCH, the doctors equally treat both the poor and rich patients. He said SKMCH Peshawar had been equipped with radiation facility making it the best one in the upper region of the country. Soon, the groundbreaking of SKMCH in Karachi would be held that would be developed as an international standard hospital, he added.
The prime minister requested the donors to contribute wholeheartedly for this noble cause as their charity would be solely spent for the treatment of poor cancer patients.
He said after establishing Namal University, he had launched work on Al-Qadir University in Sohawa, where the youth would be taught the basic ideology of Pakistan to produce future leaders so that they could carry forward the very ideology.
He said the State of Madina provided the concept of a model welfare state that had now been adopted by the modern world.
Paying tribute to the doctors and nurses of SKMCH for their valuable contribution to the success of the hospital, the prime minister said he would regularly attend the annual fundraiser to serve this noble cause.
