KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami on Sunday criticised a Sindh government’s plan to take over the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KIHD) and called it an attempt to undermine municipal institutions before the local government polls.

While inaugurating a diabetes screening camp in Nazimabad, JI-Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rahman accused the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Sindh of ruining the health system across the province, mainly in Karachi, where it was mainly relying on non-governmental organisations.

He criticised the PPP government for “deliberately damaging” health facilities being run by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).

“Instead of bringing reforms in provincial institutions, the Sindh government now encroaching upon powers and authority of the local government,” he said.

“The Sindh government neglected and deprived the local government hospitals when they were operating under the municipal system. Now it is taking them over in the name of reforms. The move to take control of the KIHD is unjust and condemnable.”

He said that the KIHD was a KMC-run cardiac health facility, where all modern cardiac treatment facilities were supposed to be available free of charge for the people of Karachi.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2021