HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal
Bhutto-Zardari has said that it is for people to decide whether they
want metro buses and dry trees being offered by opponents or hospitals
and free treatment of life-threatening diseases being provided by the
PPP.
“With elections in sight, PML-N says it has
provided metro buses to people in Punjab while Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf
boasts of planting trees. But we have established hospitals where people
get otherwise expensive treatment free of charge without any
discrimination,” said Bilawal at inaugural ceremony of a satellite unit
of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) here on
Sunday.
“As we serve masses throughout our tenure, the
so called big parties remain embroiled in a long drawn out fight on
Grand Trunk road,” he said.
Dressed in cream coloured
shalwar kameez and an ajrak draped over his shoulder, Bilawal said that
he was glad to inaugurate another NICVD satellite facility in Hyderabad
after opening its units in Larkana and Tando Mohammad Khan.
He
said that as NICVD expanded its services to major cities of Sindh, he
hoped every resident would soon be able to get free treatment at his
doorstep.
He said that he was pleased to see the poor
patients getting advantage of the facilities which were hitherto
available only to the affluent and praised Sindh chief minister, health
minister and NICVD executive director Dr Nadeem Qamar for providing the
facility to the poor.
“By establishing heart hospitals we have proved yet again that we repair hearts not break them,” he said.
“Our
hearts were indeed torn apart when a dictator hanged my grandfather
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and my mother was assassinated during the rule of
another dictator. Yet we not only take care of ourselves but Pakistan
and its people as well,” he said.
Sindh Chief Minister
Syed Murad Ali Shah said that NICVD facility in Hyderabad said the areas
where NICVD’s outreach was difficult would be connected with mobile
services at taluka level.
NICVD Sukkur unit would be the
second largest facility where maximum angiography tests would be
carried out after Karachi, he said.
SIUT would be set up
in Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana, cancer facility would be introduced
across Sindh in collaboration with Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre
and a state-of-the-art hospital would be established either in Sukkur or
Larkana, he said.
He sought the party chairman’s
permission to change name of NCIVD to Sindh Institute of Cardiovascular
Diseases (SICVD) and urged media to project government’s works in
social sector.
Dr Nadeem Qamar said that 18,000 patients
with cardiac problems were attended by NCIVD at its mobile containers
placed at six different locations in Karachi during last six months and
of them 1183 were those who had suffered cardiac arrest and were
accordingly shifted to NCIVD. Karachi needed 25 chest pain units and so
did other parts of Sindh, he said.
Sindh Minister for
Health Dr Sikandar Mandhro said that Sindh government was committed to
provide mother and child care facilities to every citizen. DADU:
Speaking at a programme commemorating martyrs of the Movement for the
Restoration of Democracy in Khairpur Nathan Shah twon, some 50
kilometres from here, on Sunday, the PPP chairman said he was ready to
take on all challenges like his mother and grandfather.
Speaking
through hologram technology, he said his mother had challenged
terrorists and their facilitators and she also never bowed to pressures
for handing over the country to dictators.
He said that
PPP activists from Karachi to Kashmore would converge on Ghrahi Khuda
Bakhsh Bhutto on Dec 27 to participate in the 10th death anniversary
programme of their slain leader.
Earlier, PPP MNAs, MPAs and local leaders also spoke at the gathering.