DADU: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has said the satellite centre of the Natio­nal Institute of Cardio­vas­cular Diseases (NICVD) at Sayed Abdullah Shah Insti­tute of Medical Scie­nces will cater to the needs of not only Sehwan residents but also thousands others who visit Qalandar Lal Shahbaz shrine throughout the year.

The centre would provide free of cost treatment to Sehwan, Sindh and Pakis­tan as well as devotees of Qalandar from around the world, said Bilawal while speaking at a gathering at Shahbaz auditorium after inaugurating the satellite centre, the fourth established so far by the NICVD in the province, in Sehwan on Friday.

He said that his government had also established a kidney transplantation centre in Karachi and a centre for liver transplantation in Gambat in Kahirpur Mirs which was also free for patients. Specialists from Ger­many served at this

hospital who also trained local doctors in the field, he said. He said the Sindh government had launched free ambulance service in Sujawal and Thatta districts, opened a centre named after Benazir Bhutto in Karachi and handed over a 300-bed state-of-the-art hospital to Indus Hospital in Badin to provide quality healthcare to poor patients. A Thalassemia center was also established in Badin, he added.

He said that a large cardiac hospital, perhaps the biggest in South Asia, was opened in Karachi which provided free treatment in addition to the NICVD satellite centers established in Larkana, Tando Mohammad Khan, Hyderabad and now Sehwan, which were providing free treatment to thousands of patients.

He said that no other area of the country could boast of such progress but despite these achievements people asked what PPP had done for Sindh. PPP had provided interest-free loans to women under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) to help poor women stand on their feet, he said. He said the BISP supported 600,000 families and helped them graduate from poverty. It ensured better and healthy food for women and children, he said.

Bilawal said the Sindh government was serving people in the fields of education and healthcare. He said that a suicide blast was carried out at Qalandar shrine to stop dhamal but the tragedy served to unite people against terrorists and they showed them they would never forsake their traditions for fear of death.

People had to decide whether they needed metro bus service on the pattern of Punjab or free treatment in hospitals in Sindh, he said.

The public court would have to make a decision whether people needed trees or free treatment, a reference to Khyber Pakh­tun­khwa government’s cam­paign for planting trees, he said.

PPP chairman was accompanied during the visit by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Minister for Information Syed Nasir Shah, Minister for Health Dr Sikandar Ali Mandhro, adviser to chief minister on Auqaf Syed Ghulam Shah Jilani, MNA Malik Asad Sikandar, MPA Dr Sikandar Shoro and health secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2018