MANSEHRA: Residents of Baffa and adjoining areas here on Tuesday demanded of authorities to upgrade the local health centre as the tehsil headquarters hospital.

“We want access to better healthcare that can happen through the upgradation of the local health centre as the THQ hospital,” former election candidate Abdul Shakoor Lughmani told reporters.

Mr Lughmani, who met with district health officer Dr Faisal Zaman and medical superintendentDr Naeem Awan along with residents earlier in the day, said patients were referred to hospitals in Mansehra and Abbottabad due to limited health facilities.

“We appreciate MS Dr Naeem Awan’s efforts to provide visitors with modern healthcare but the health centre’s upgradation is required to address other issues as well,” he said.

DHO promises to take up their issues with officials

The DHO told visitors that he would take up all those issues with the health minister, secretary and director general next week.

ROAD MISHAP: Three people suffered injuries when a passenger coach they rode overturned on the Hazara Expressway in the Dodial area here on Tuesday amid heavy rain.

“We shifted all the injured to a nearby health facility,” Amir Khadam of Rescue 1122 told reporters.

He said the accident occurred as the driver lost control of the coach due to the rain on the way from Gilgit to Rawalpindi.

The official said the injured, including Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Ghazi and Mohammad Ghulam, were shifted to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital but the doctors referred them to the Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad.

The rain started in Mansehra and Balakot in the morning and continued until evening, turning the weather pleasant.

The National Highway Authority cleared the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road, which was blocked after the flooding of a Balakot stream.

The traffic remained suspended for half an hour. The road’s reopening to traffic enabled the people to leave for their destinations.

PTI GOVT FLAYED: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz central senior vice-president and MNA Sardar Mohammad Yusuf on Tuesday criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for what he claimed trying to deprive opposition lawmakers of development funds.

“The PTI government has withheld funds of opposition lawmakers, depriving people from their constituencies of basic rights,” Mr Yusuf told a public gathering in the Sarbori Bugermung area here.

Mr Yusuf said if funds were not released, the PML-N would move the court of law for relief.

He said the PML-N government in the centre was sincerely working to address the country’s socioeconomic issues to the people’s relief.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024