Federal Minister for Health, Muhammad Nasir Khan has said that government would introduce the medical tourism to attract foreign investment in building hospital, equipped with modern facilities.
These investments would be tax free and duty-free in order to facilitate the investors who want to build hospitals, Nasir Khan said while talking to reporters after delivering his keynote address on "Health Sector: Challenges and Constraints" organised by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a local hotel on Thursday.
The minister said that well-equipped hospitals would not only provide better healthcare to the people but also attract people from abroad to get treatment in Pakistan.
He said that 21 percent increase in the health budget for next fiscal would help government improve the infrastructure. The government is constructing two 10-storey tower blocks in Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) Karachi and in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) to improve the infrastructure.
In last three years, he said, Trauma Centre was completed while within two month Burns Centre would be opened for public. Cardiac Centre at Pims is in final stage and it would serve the heart patients of the area, he added.
Naseer Khan said that in next three years, government would spend Rs 2.55 billion on hepatitis control, besides Rs 2.7 billion to blindness control in the country. We are making efforts to detect blindness among students at primary level to treat it in time, he added. Dialysis for the kidney patients has been made free of cost for poor patients the minister said, adding that more kidney centres are being established.
He said that drugs of cancer and hepatitis were exempted from any sort of tax in order to make them easily available to patients. We have also reduced the duty on raw materials to give incentives to pharmaceutical industries of the country, he added.
Earlier, addressing the seminar, he said that devolution of power was imperative to streamline the system. We have put in place a check and balance but before that we must change behaviour of every individual of the country.
He said that government has decided to deregulate pharmaceutical industry and monitor cost and quality of medicines being produced in Pakistan. The minister stressed the need for quality medical education saying that only through quality education, best doctors could be produced.
He said that medical education is a serious business and there should be vigil on it. Only serious parties should come who would provide better faculty, well-equipped labs and libraries and work atmosphere to students. He said that private-public partnership was imperative not only for infrastructure building but for better medical care to people. Director General NAB, Admiral Pervaiz Asghar delivered the welcome address.
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