Expensive hospitals

Since the establishment of Pakistan, the people in the beloved homeland have only been deceived. The public has been deceived sometimes in the name of free healthcare and sometimes in the name of free education. Corrupt politicians constantly assure that soon a hospital will be built and the public will be provided with free medical facilities, however, nothing happens.

The tragedy of our country is that our rulers are committed to the ideology of class segregation. The government deliberately orders institutions to allot plots of land in the name of welfare only under the pressure of their friends and communities. They also know that it will be impossible for the poor to get admitted to the hospital because the hospital administration will receive a huge amount of price for medical facilities.   

If we assume that the government wasn’t familiar with the intentions of the hospital builders. So isn’t it the responsibility of the ruling party to take notice of this move by the hospital building companies on the land allotted for welfare purposes?  

Among such hospitals are Aga Khan Hospital and Liaquat National Hospital, in Karachi. Liaquat National was built by the government of Pakistan for the welfare of poor people. However, corruption remained the destiny of Pakistan, and Liaquat National Hospital was turned into a private estate.

Nowadays, it is impossible for a common man to get full treatment here. The saviour of lives (medical staff and hospital) treats it as a business organisation to make money. The conventional ways medical staff adopt to get extra money include, asking for bribes from the patients for the queue jump, increase their bills making them stay unnecessarily long in the hospital, or misguide them to consult a specialist that takes high fees for the check-up. The government has always remained silent in this regard and no action is taken against it, which is based on the corruption of the rulers.

Similarly, the land of Aga Khan Hospital was gifted by former President General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. In this regard, it is said that the Aga Khan Foundation had appealed that they want to build a hospital for the treatment of poor people where medical facilities will be easily available to the poor citizens.

It should be noted that according to the Pakistani laws enacted in the field of trust, the land acquired for welfare purposes is not subject to federal or provincial taxes including income tax and property tax.

Liaquat National, which was purely a federal government hospital, has been taken over by some industrials for alleged forgery and fraud and has maliciously turned it into a private trust, similarly, the Aga Khan Hospital forged with the government of Pakistan.

The value of the land gifted to the Aga Khan Foundation was about Rs 20 billion at the time and is now estimated to be worth around Rs 500 billion. There was some uproar when the Supreme Court questioned the Aga Khan Hospital administration in a case. Even at that time, the government didn’t take notice against the administration nor the government audited Agha Khan and Liaquat National.

Patients are being robbed in such hospitals set up for welfare purposes. Now, the Supreme Court of Pakistan or Pakistan Army could help the poor people in this regard and can finally provide their healthcare rights, because in 70 years no politician has ever paid attention to it.