Provincial Minister for Labour, Haji Ehsaan-ud-Din Qureshi has said that labourers are the backbone of industrial system and government will ensure provision of state of the art health care facilities to the labourers and their children.
In order to ensure provision of these facilities, he added, himself and department's officials will pay surprise visit to social security hospitals in the province. He further said that government has reserved Rs 42.30 billion for provision of healthcare facilities to the people in the province, whereas Rs eight billion would be spent to achieve millennium development goals (MDGs) during the next fiscal year.
While talking to various delegations, Ehsaan-ud-din said that in Pakistan, youth is becoming victim of heart diseases and this increasing trend is likely to double the burden of disease in the developing countries. This, clearly, is likely to have significant health economic implications as a result of cost of care. He said that in order to provide specialised treatment/diagnostic facilities near the workplace of labourers, the department has established satellite clinics.
The minister said that the main objective of the department is to provide free of cost comprehensive healthcare facilities to the workers and their family members. This includes bone-marrow transplant facility, cochlear implant facility to the deaf and dumb children of secured workers, facility of abroad treatment, CT Scan 64 slices, Hepatitis B&C Clinics etc, he concluded.