ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: In a country where the public per capita health expenditure is measly Rs360, the government spent Rs65 million on overseas treatment of just 18 bigwigs mostly for diseases that could be treated within the country and that too at a fraction of the cost.
Figures collected from the health ministry revealed that ever since the ten-year long moratorium on overseas treatment from public expenditure was relaxed last year some 18 politicians and bureaucrats benefited from the facility on the special approval of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, spending an amount that was enough to run a tertiary care hospital for a whole year and 13 times more than what the government was spending on prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (high blood pressure, diabetes, heart diseases and stroke), a major cause of mortality and disability in the country.
The health ministry was instrumental in providing the no- objection certificates and certifying that the required treatment did not exist in the country knowing well that some of those procedures like heart surgery, breast cancer, brain haemorrhage, carcinomas and eye surgery, were being done successfully in the country. Nevertheless, there were certain instances in which the treatment was not available here.
The government had in November 1996 banned all overseas treatment on public expenditure in the aftermath of nuclear tests to save foreign exchange. The policy remained enforced till last year when Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, reputed for his interpretations of law, managed to convince the prime minister that his heart ailment could not be cured in the country and went abroad for heart surgery.
Federal Health Secretary Khushnood Lashari, while defending the prime minister’s decision of using his discretionary powers to permit overseas treatment of certain bureaucrats and politicians, said the 1996 restriction on overseas treatment was a policy matter taken during extreme financial crunch, otherwise there was nothing in the law that forbade it.
Moreover, the economic conditions have improved and the situation was appropriate for easing the embargo.
MNA Kunwar Khalid Yunus, who got the highest allocation of Rs11 million for one-year treatment in United Kingdom, said he only utilised Rs4.5 million and remained under treatment for just three months and was continuing his medication at Agha Khan.
He believed that he deserved to be commended for not utilising the full sanctioned amount.
Asked if it was not unjust that he was given such a huge amount for overseas treatment while people in his constituency struggled to get even a single tablet from public hospitals, he said hierarchy was everywhere and this (preferential treatment) also took place everywhere. “Don’t you think that after being a parliamentarian for almost two decades I deserved this much privilege,” he argued.
Federal Minister Dr Niazi thinks that facility of overseas treatment for parliamentarians should continue as it was provided everywhere.
Speaking about his case, he said there was no doubt that there were very good cardiac hospitals in the country, but the decision to seek overseas treatment was taken in view of his precarious situation.
The civil society, however, considers this preferential treatment for the politicians and bureaucrats inequitable.
Dr Sania Nishtar, founder of the health policy think tank Heartfile, referred to Article 2A (objectives resolution), Article 9 (security of a person), Article 14 (inviolability of dignity), Article 25 (equality of citizens), Article 38 (social and economic wellbeing) of the Constitution, stating that these constitutional covenants and their interpretations formed the right based approach to health.
“However what is equally important is the need to deliver health on an equitable basis; every citizen has been guaranteed the right to health under the constitution regardless of socioeconomic status, race or religion,” she added.
