Punjab government is spending 15 percent of the total budget of the province on health sector during the current financial year. Provincial Minister for Health Kh Suleman Raffique said here on Wednesday that keeping in view the public health as its first priority the government has increased the health budget two fold from Rs 66 billion to Rs 112 billion out of which Rs 20 billion were allocated for construction of districts and tehsil headquarters hospitals.
Highlighting achievements of the health sector the minister said that Pakistan Kidney and Liver Transplant Institute and Research Centre is coming up with the state of the art health facilities for the poor patients in Lahore, an amount of Rs 16 billion has been allocated on priority basis for providing free of cost medicine in all the hospitals of the province. Similarly an amount of Rs 50 crore has been allocated for providing free of cost hepatitis medicines to the patients.
District health authorities have been setup on local and district level. The infrastructure and machinery of five drug testing laboratories has been formed according to international standards. Drawing a comparison between the health facilities of Punjab and KP, the minister said that Patients are moving towards Punjab public hospitals due to the devastated condition of public hospitals in KP.
PTI's government has failed to establish a single hospital having modern healthcare facilities. 30 to 40 percent patients getting admission in Children Hospital Lahore are from KP. They included patients of cancer, heart and other diseases.