KARACHI, July 19: Former City Nazim Niamatullah Khan has expressed concern over the reports of handing over the Government Children Hospital, North Karachi to the private sector. He said, in a statement, that handing over the hospital to the private sector would be a sheer cruelty with the city’s poor and middle class people, as a common man could not afford expensive treatment in private hospitals.

Mr Niamat said the first trauma centre, which was set up in the public sector in Karachi a few years back, had already been privatized by the Sindh government, and now it (the govt) was after the children hospital.

With the introduction of the present local government system, he pointed out that all government, except teaching hospitals, were under city government control.

But, he said, the health department from day one was opposed to the devolution system and had been intervening in the affairs of hospitals, which were under the control of the city government to fail the local government system.

The former nazim appealed to intellectuals, doctors, and social institutions to take notice and called upon President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim to stop the health department from taking the anti-people decision.

He also demanded that appointment of necessary medical and other technical staff for the hospital should be immediately ordered through the public service commission while some senior professor with good reputation should be appointed as its full time director.