Health, education sectors in Punjab: record funds being provided to achieve MDGs: Minister

Punjab Finance Minister Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman has said that in order to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), record funds were being provided to health and education sectors and the major focus of the government was on protecting the health of people trough strengthening of primary health care and disease preventive programmes.
He was talking to party workers here on Saturday. He said resources worth billions of rupees have been allocated for provision of education, health and other basic facilities in the current fiscal year budget. "Special attention is being paid to the provision of best treatment facilities to the people of far-flung areas, especially remote areas of South Punjab, and Rs 1 billion has been provided for mobile health units. More resources will be provided for the uplift of socio-economic status of the masses belonging to downtrodden areas," he added.
According to him, the Punjab government is focusing for the treatment of chronic and fatal diseases. For imparting modern education to the students, Rs 274 billion will be spent on the education sector during the current fiscal year, which is 26.25 percent of the total budget of the province.
"The government was encouraging NGOs as well as educational institutions for organising awareness events against fatal diseases. We have provided additional budget for the provision of health services in Punjab. By increasing the health budget up to Rs 121.80 billion, the present PML-N government has ensured modern health facilities and free medicines as well as air-conditioning in general wards to poor and resource-less people. With a cost of Rs 4 billion health insurance cards will be issued to provide state-of-the-art healthcare facilities even in private health institutions to the poor card holder patients. Moreover, Rs 600 million has been reserved for dialysis facilities to the poor kidney patients. A huge amount of Rs 8.75 billion is being spent on the provision of free treatment and medicines to the poor and destitute in public sector hospitals of the province," he added.
Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said the Institute of Neuro Sciences will provide opportunities for the promotion of neurosurgery in Punjab as well as training and updating the knowledge of doctors. He said brain tumor was completely curable disease and all facilities of neurosurgery were available in the country, early diagnosis can enhance the possibilities for complete recovery. "Huge resources are being spent on the rapid development of the Punjab province, promotion of quality education, elimination of ignorance and unemployment as well as provision of prompt and inexpensive justice to the masses," he added.