LAHORE: The PML-N has criticised the Punjab government for abolishing free tests in three public hospitals of the city, terming the move cruel.

“The free test facility at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore General Hospital and Services Hospital has been abolished. The Punjab government has already stopped the provision of free medicines to patients at the public hospitals in Punjab,” PML-N Punjab Information Secretary Azma Bokhari said on Monday.

The PML-N lawmaker said the MRI, CT-scan and some other machines had been out of order at the Mayo Hospital and Jinnah Hospital for a long time and no official concerned was bothered about it. She questioned the benefits of the health card if there were no facilities available in hospitals.

Ms Bokhari said the ‘card government’ had become a liability and the people wanted to get rid of it.

The PTI government in Punjab had already ended free diagnosis for the patients in indoor departments of all the public hospitals of the province, she said and added that since mid-2019, the government had imposed a heavy fee on some 50 services and diagnostic facilities, which were being earlier offered free of cost while it revised the rates of many services and test facilities.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2022