MIRPURKHAS: Leaders of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s Mirpurkhas chapter have accused caretaker Sindh government of continuing with Pakistan Peoples Party’s ‘prejudicial’ policies towards people in general and millions of residents of the city in particular.

MQM-P district in-charge Khalid Tabassum, other party leaders Afaq Ahmed Khan, Fareed Ahmed Qureshi and Saleem Memon said at a joint press conference at National Press Club here on Friday that in continuation with the previous government’s policies, the interim government had kept millions of people of the city deprived of basic healthcare facilities.

Hence, in a recent visit to the city caretaker Sindh chief minister issued orders to shift the well-functioning paediatrics and gynaecology wards in the old building of Mirpurkhas Civil Hospital to the as yet incomplete district headquarters hospital seven kilometers from the city.

They deplored that local PPP leadership allegedly wanted to occupy the costly land of the old civil hospital on the basis of the spurious argument that it was their forefathers’ land.

They had hence forced the hospital administration in past to shift all the wards to the under-construction district headquarters hospital and succeeded to get most of the wards transferred over the years except paediatrics and gynaecology as both the wards were busy providing basic healthcare facilities to masses at their doorstep, they said.

They said that Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori had sent a letter to secretary of health asking him to restore the wards of gynaecology, cardiology and emergency in the old civil hospital building but the secretary of health ignored his letter under pressure of influential land mafia.

They said that health department officers had no cogent answer to substantiate the decision of shifting the wards to the new building. So far, only a chest pain centre had been set up in the new building, which should have been in the NICVD, as a result patients were routinely referred to the NICVD in Tando Mohammad Khan and Hyderabad, they said.

They demanded the higher authorities immediately restore the wards of gynaecology, paediatrics, cardiology and emergency in the old civil hospital building without delay to ensure provision of healthcare facilities to masses.

They urged the caretaker prime minister and governor to take notice of the ill-advised decision of caretaker Sindh chief minister to shift the wards to the under-construction hospital, otherwise MQM-P Mirpurkhas chapter would stage protests and seek help from courts as well to defend rights of citizens.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2023