Sessions judges have refused to head bodies to buy medicine for govt hospitals, PA told

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The Sindh Assembly was informed on Monday that district and sessions judges had refused to assume the responsibility to head the district-level committees for the purchase of medicines for the government-run health facilities in the province.The information to this effect was passed on to the relevant MPAs by Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho as she responded in the house to a point of order raised by opposition legislator Adeeba Hassan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf regarding a shortage of medicines at the hospitals.She said the government had decided to assign the responsibilities to district and sessions judges as being heads of the district-level committees to locally purchase medicines in view of the shortage of drugs at the hospitals. Pechuho said that in place of the district and sessions judges, the deputy commissioners could be assigned the duties as the being chiefs of the district-level committees for the procurement of medicines.She said that an application had been filed with the registrar of the Sindh High Court so that such a decision on the part of the judges could be reviewed. Leader of Opposition in Sindh Assembly Firdous Shamim Naqvi sought permission of the deputy speaker, who at that time was chairing the session, to speak on the issue.Deputy Speaker Sindh Assembly Rehana Laghari didn’t grant permission to the opposition leader while giving the opinion that such a debate could not be held in the house as the issue pertained to the judiciary.Firdous Shamim Naqvi expressed his annoyance against the ruling of the deputy speaker as, according to him, he should be allowed to speak on the issue as being a concerned member of the house and its opposition leader. Naqvi offered to the treasury’s side that he was willing to approach the court along with the provincial government to resolve the issue. The health minister responded that a letter had been sent to the judiciary to get the issue resolved and the response to the letter was being awaited by the government.Contraception daySpeaking on his point of order, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s lone member Syed Abdul Rasheed objected to the holding of a programme at the Dow University of Health Sciences in Karachi to mark World Contraception Day observed every year on 26th September.He said there should be no compromise on the injunctions of Islam, arguing that the holding of such events at the medical colleges went against teachings of the religion. Responding to the point of order, the health minister said that it was undue on the part of the opposition legislator to link such an issue with the religion. She said that it was mandatory to teach students of MBBS at the medical colleges about the reproductive health.She said that there had been instances in the society pertaining to undue births due to unsocial and erroneous practices among the people as the lives of such newborns were later unlawfully ended.She said students of medical colleges should be taught about issues pertaining to reproductive health and related legal implications so as to better equip themselves to provide health treatment services in this regard.Teachers’ appointmentsOpposition lawmaker Nusrat Seher Abbasi of the Grand Democratic Alliance through a point of order raised the issue of employment of teachers for government-run schools in Sindh who had been selected through the aptitude test conducted by the Institute of Business Administration.Information Minister Saeed Ghani informed the house that the chief minister had earlier in the day while chairing a meeting of the cabinet had formed a committee to resolve this issue and soon progress would be made in this regard.Sindh Minister for Public Health Engineering Shabbir Bijarani informed the house during the question hour that some 750 reverse-osmosis water filtration plants had been established in the Tharparkar area.He said residents of Mithi and Islamkot areas were being provided the facility of clean drinking water. He said the RO plant established in Mithi had the capacity to treat 200,000 gallons of water on a daily basis.GDA opposition legislator Hasnain Mirza said that over 10 RO plants in District Badin had been non-functional for the last several years and Badin being a coastal town had been facing a severe water shortage. He said the house should be informed about when the non-functional RO plants in Badin would be made functional again.

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2oKWqQl
The News International - Karachi