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Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan claimed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has spent at least Rs12 billion on publicity campaigns from the national treasury, saying his government could have utilised the funds on improving the health sector in the country.

Khan was addressing his supporters at a rally in Kasur, Punjab on Sunday.

The PTI chief said Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre in Peshawar was built at a cost of Rs4bn. "It is a bigger and a more modern facility than Jinnah Hospital in Lahore," he added.

The PTI chief was referring to a 60-year-old woman Zohra Bibi, wife of a milkman, who died after being left unattended at the Jinnah Hospital in Lahore. The family said Jinnah Hospital had refused to admit her citing a shortage of beds in the facility.

According to the family, Bibi had been refused treatment at four public hospitals ─ the Kasur DHQ Hospital, the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, Services Hospital and the Jinnah Hospital ─ one after in another in few hours before she died at Lahore's Jinnah Hospital.

Khan also said the prime minister goes to London for medical check-ups, but does not prefer to go to government-run hospitals.

"There are so many [people like] Zohra Bibi who die everyday because of a lack of hospital beds and proper medical care," Khan said, adding that leaders who spend "Rs12bn on self-promotion and publicity would not care for the public who is suffering."

The PTI chief accused the PM of lying in the Parliament while speaking regarding his properties and finances, saying if a leader in a western democracy would have lied in the parliament, he would be dispelled immediately.

"The education budget of Balochistan is around Rs15bn," added the PTI chief, accusing leaders of spending taxpayers' money on self-promotion and being apathetic to the socio-economic woes faced by the public.