LAHORE: Nawaz Sharif himself and his family are insisting that the former prime minister should be sent to London for his cardiac treatment and showing complete mistrust in the expertise of top Pakistani specialists as well as healthcare facilities that were developed by the successive PML-N governments during the past three decades, said federal information minister Fawad Chaudhry.

Saying that Mr Sharif’s family and PML-N leaders were politicking on their supreme leader’s health, Mr Chaudhry made it clear that corrupt leaders’ accountability would not stop as the looted money belonged to the people of Pakistan. He suggested that the jailed leader could go for the option of plea bargain with the NAB, adding that he was accused of making Rs300 billion illegal transactions.

The information minister said Mr Sharif, his family and their political aides were creating a hype about his ailment to pressurise the Supreme Court, which would be hearing his bail petition. Mr Sharif had expressed serious annoyance by insisting to go back to jail from hospital, when his bail plea on medical grounds in the Al-Azizia corruption case was rejected on Feb 25, he added.

Mr Chaudhry was speaking at a press conference flanked by Punjab health minister Dr Yasmin Rashid at Press Information Department following a meeting that was also attended by the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) top officials, jail authorities, industries minister Mian Aslam Iqbal and chief minister’s spokesman Dr Shahbaz Gill.

Explaining the arrangements made by the government to provide “the best possible treatment” to Mr Sharif in chronological order since his imprisonment on December 24 last, the minister said it was up to the PML-N whether it wanted to do politics on its leader’s health.

He also read out a Punjab home department letter offering Mr Sharif to “get yourself treated from any government or private hospital and from any specialist doctor as per your own choice,” and added that the PML-N patron had also refused to call any doctor from abroad for his treatment.

Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, earlier in the day, in a tweet had asked why the Sharif brothers could not establish a healthcare facility during the past 30 years where they could get themselves treated? “Do Sharif brothers’ very own private healthcare facilities – the Sharif Medical City and Ittefaq Hospital – offer substandard healthcare?” he asked. “Prime Minister Imran Khan as well as his father had always got themselves treated from Shaukat Khanum Hospital,” he added.

In the earlier part of his tweet, Mr Buzdar replied (with a barrage of questions) to former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif’s statement wherein he had warned that if anything bad happened to his imprisoned elder brother because of lack of proper treatment, the government would be responsible for it.

“Had the government not offered Nawaz Sharif to get treatment of his choice,” Mr Buzdar asked in a tweet. “Does Mr Sharif has no trust in public hospitals established by his brother as well as his two private hospitals?” and “Is Nawaz Sharif not refusing to go to hospital to get bail”.

Answering a media query, health minister Dr Yasmin Rashid said Punjab Assembly speaker had constituted a committee comprising treasury and opposition members to arrange the best healthcare facilities for the jailed leader. “The opposition members only insisted that Mr Sharif should be sent to the UK for treatment – nothing less,” she explained and added that this demand was beyond the government’s powers. She also said that life and death was in the hands of Allah Almighty and no one could take responsibility for one’s life.

The information minister said Mr Sharif was facing health complications owing to his treatment in the UK and added that he neither allowed Pakistani senior cardiologists to do his angiography, nor allowed the mini cardiac unit, placed outside the jail premises round the clock, to examine him even once.

Responding to a question, Mr Chaudhry said the government was being blackmailed by the PML-N propaganda because of media hype and added that society started sympathising even with “the corrupt” in such circumstances.

“As many as 92 prisoners had died for want of basic healthcare facilities in Sindh jails,” he said, in an indirect reference to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s offer to get Mr Sharif treated at any healthcare facility in the province ruled by his party.

When reminded that Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz had returned to Pakistan to go to jail, the information minister said they had taken the decision to maintain the “right of appeal” option. “However, Nawaz Sharif did not realise that Imran Khan is Pakistan’s prime minister,” he said, adding that Mr Khan would never let any corrupt person off the hook.

Terming the Avenfield Apartments in London a hideout, the minister said those who go there never return and cited former finance minister Ishaq Dar as well as Nawaz Sharif’s sons Hassan and Hussain as an example.

Mr Chaudhry said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s attitude towards Pakistan and its system was altogether different as compared to that of Nawaz Sharif, his family and political aides.

He claimed that the PTI government was not facing any political challenge at this point of time.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2019