Pakistan Peoples Party's Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said the PPP's Sindh government is trying to provide modern healthcare facilities to all citizens in the province. Speaking as a chief guest at the inauguration ceremony of National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases' (NICVD) Satellite Center at Liaquat University Hospital here Sunday.
Bilawal praised Sindh government's performance in the health sector. "With the aim to provide best cardiac care facilities, Sindh government has so far opened 3 satellite centres of NICVD in Larkana, Tando Muhammad Khan and Hyderabad while 2 more centres in Sukkur and Sehwan will soon be started," he informed. Bilawal said the NICVD's centres would provide free health services adding that even the poor people who could not afford expensive cardiac health services would avail those facilities.
He informed quoting the centre's officials that the angioplasty, adult and paediatric cardiology, bypass surgery, echo-cardiograph, diagnosis and consulting services would be offered in Hyderabad. "These health services until recently were available to only some well-off people," he observed as he credited Sindh government for making the same facilities accessible to the poor people. Bilawal congratulated Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro and NICVD's Director Dr Nadeem Qamar and his team for establishment of the satellite centres. He said NICVD was South Asia's largest health service provider.
The PPP's chairman also acknowledged and praised the services of Dr Adeeb Rizvi's Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplant (SIUT) and told that an SIUT's centre was also being established in Sukkur district. He also appreciated Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences in Khairpur district, saying that the hospital was providing free kidney and liver transplant services in a small rural town of Sindh.
"Not only the people of Sindh but of whole Pakistan are benefiting from these hospitals. By establishing these hospitals we proved that we are connecting hearts of the whole nation," he observed. However, the PPP chairman lamented that his family's hearts were broken when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and his uncles were killed. "Like my elders who didn't care about themselves in the service of the people, I will also not care about myself," he said. Bilawal also gave example of another health facility which was providing free treatment to cancer patients at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in Karachi.
According to him, there were only 250 cyber knife machines in the world and Sindh was the only province in Pakistan which not only offered that crucial health service for cancer patients but also offered it for free. Globally, he added, a cyber knife surgery cost between $50,000 to $60,000.
He asked the people to judge the political parties for the service and development works they had carried out during last 5 years. "PTI says they have planted trees that we don't know. The PPP has built hospitals," he said adding that the people will have to decide whether they wanted the dried up trees or better health facilities. Earlier, Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah requested Bilawal to accept the proposal of changing name of NICVD to Sindh Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases (SICVD).
He informed that NICVD Sukkur would be inaugurated on January 7, 2018, and he sought time from Bilawal for inaugurating NICVD Sehwan which he said was also ready.
"We want to provide cardiac facilities in all districts of Sindh. Although we aspire to provide them at tehsil level but a shortage of doctors isn't allowing us to do so," he said. The Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro, Local Government Minister Jam Khan Shoro and NICVD's Director Dr Nadeem Qamar, among other dignitaries, attended the ceremony.
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