Nawaz shifted to hospital as his health worsens

LAHORE: Former premier and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif was shifted to the Services Hospital on Monday night after his health worsened.

Party workers reached the NAB office in Lahore and started protesting outside the main gate for the provision of better health facilities to the former premier.

At the hospital, the PML-N supremo was tested for dengue fever but the test returned negative.

Earlier in the day, PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif said that the government’s reluctance to shift the former premier to a hospital for medical care was the worst example of “political vengeance and insensitivity”.

“If anything happens to Nawaz, we will blame Prime Minister Imran Khan for it,” he said.

Nawaz’s physician Dr Adnan Malik also said that his platelet count was critically low which could be due to multiple pathologies. “Former PM #NawazSharif is detected to have critically low Platelet Count (16*10^9/L) that could be due to multiple pathologies & requires immediate in-hospital care. I’ve requested the concerned authorities to act in urgency please,” he said.

He said that Nawaz required immediate in-hospital care. “Former PM #NawazSharif is detected to have critically low Platelet Count (16*10^9/L) that could be due to multiple pathologies & requires immediate in-hospital care. I’ve requested the concerned authorities to act in urgency please,” he said.

Meanwhile, PML-N leader and Nawaz’s son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar was arrested by the police over his “provocative speeches”.

Nawaz, who has thrice been the prime minister of Pakistan, was incarcerated at the Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore before being shifted to NAB’s detention centre in Lahore for interrogation in Chaudhary Sugar Mills corruption reference earlier this month. Last year, he was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted by an accountability court in the Al Azizia Steel Mills case.

Despite the criticism from opposition and party workers, NAB officials have repeatedly said that Nawaz has been given proper medical facilities at the detention centre.

This is not the first time Nawaz has been shifted to the hospital. Earlier this year, he was shifted there for medical treatment after he suffered cardiac pain. Before that he had been examined by a special team of doctors belonging to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC).