PPP blasts govt over Sindh hospitals takeover.

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan People's Party yesterday lambasted the federal government for takeover of the Sindh hospitals and rejected formation of inquiry committee headed by former Justice Shaikh Azmat Saeed to probe the Broadsheet scandal.

Opposing federal government's takeover of the Sindh's hospitals, PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman said Sindh's National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, National Institute of Child Health and Jinnah Sindh Medical University are renowned all over Asia for their world class care. 'People from all over the country come there for treatment since there are no other hospitals in the country which offer the same high quality of care and treatment but plans are being made by the federal government to take over them,' she said. The PPP leader said employees were already feeling threatened that they will go down the same route as Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.

'This is completely illegal under the 18th Amendment. Service delivery which is with the province cannot be taken over by the federal government. As it stands the service delivery record of PTI in health and education is abysmal. You only need to see the state of KP (Khyber Pakhtunkhaw) institutions to understand that. Why do they want to get into something they are not capable of handling? Why do they want to damage the quality of these hospitals,' she questioned. Sherry Rehman said Sindh was attracting doctors from the private sector by paying them more and giving them incentives. 'Instead of making the provinces more independent during the pandemic, this government wants to take down the only functional hospitals in the country. We strongly condemn these attempts by the federal government to takeover Sindh's hospitals,' she added.

Speaking on the Medical and Dental College Admission Test issue, Senator Rehman said some 121,000 students were protesting against the Pakistan Medical Commission over their abrupt decision to 'centralise' MDCAT from this year. 'How can they conduct exams without consulting the province and the syllabus? All rules have been violated to conduct these exams. The students have said that in the MDCAT paper they were given questions out of the syllabus. They also claimed that the names on the result certificates given to them were incorrect. Their degrees will not be accepted anywhere and their future is at risk,' she maintained.

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