ISLAMABAD: Saying there should be no politics on national emergencies such as floods, Minister for National Health Services (NHS) Abdul Qadir Patel on Tuesday said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) should also seek assistance from the federal government for the flood-affected people just like the provinces of Punjab and Balochistan.

He said a donor conference has been arranged on Wednesday (today) for helping the flood-hit people as the government does not have enough resources to rehabilitate the damaged infrastructure.

The minister said medicines worth over Rs15 million had been dispatched to flood-hit areas and other relief items, including medicated mosquito nets worth Rs0.6 million, were being sent to the affected areas of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, he said his ministry was making extraneous efforts to help the flood-affected people.

“A 12-member team of doctors has already been sent to the worst-hit Lasbela district. Some 30,000 vaccines and a truck carrying medicines has already been sent to the flood-hit areas. Around 200,000 vaccines are also being sent to the affected areas. The ministry has already dispatched 36,000 medicated mosquito nets. Over 1.4 million more nets would soon be dispatched,” he said.

He said anti-venom serum was ready for immediate delivery to any flooded area that might be in the need.

He said a donor conference had been arranged on Wednesday for helping the flood-hit people as the government did not have enough resources to rehabilitate the infrastructure. He said Lasbela district was among the worst-hit areas as its infrastructure had completely been destroyed.

He said the federal government would serve the flood-hit people without any discrimination.

Mr Patel said Punjab had sought help for the flood-hit people of Rajanpur and Dera Ghazi Khan and the federal government would respond soon. He added that he would visit Thatta this week for distributing relief items among the flood-hit people.

He said the health ministry had appointed two coordinators to have liaison and promptly convey the needs of flood-hit people of Balochistan and Sindh.

Health ministry’s spokesman Sajid Shah, while talking to Dawn, said national and international donor agencies at the conference will be requested to support Pakistan to address the issues of flood-affected people.

“We have witnessed one of the severest floods during the last over a decade and the government does not have resources to rebuild infrastructure, so we expect that international donors will support and assist us in addressing the issues of people who have been suffering due to the floods across Pakistan,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2022