ISLAMABAD: Responding to criticism against the Sindh government following the deaths of newborns in the Thar desert due to a lack of health facilities, a young PPP MNA tried to defend his party but ended up committing a faux pas.

Imran Zafar Leghari, who hails from Dadu, said that hospitals were not just meant to provide healthcare facilities to people, adding, somewhat unfortunately, that “people also died there”.

Hitting out at the media and opposition parties, who have been blaming PPP for the recent wave of deaths in Thar, Mr Leghari said: “Only sick people visit hospitals; and what’s the big deal if a few of them die there.”

Mr Leghari argued that thousands of patients visited hospitals and that a hospital’s records would definitely show some deaths, insisting that this was the case in Thar as well.

He claimed that sick children that were only a few days old were being brought to the hospital, and asked the house how the Sindh government could be held responsible if they died there.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2016