First things first. Health is essentially a provincial subject after the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010.
Since then the federal health division is only, or largely, ensuring interprovincial coordination in the health sector, formulating overarching national policies and dealing with international health agencies.
Healthcare, disease control and medical education fall in the domain of the provinces.
In recent days, Karachi mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab is said to have questioned the performance of federal health minister Mustafa Kamal, a former mayor of Karachi, asking him, “How many hospitals have you as the federal health minister established in Karachi since you became one of the members of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led federal cabinet two years ago?”
In my view, however, expecting a federal health minister to set up new hospitals in Karachi or Lahore, for example, does not make sense, so to speak. That Murtaza Wahab is an accomplished lawyer is a fact. He must be aware of a federal health minister’s powers and jurisdictions post-18th Amendment.
So the question is: why he’s unnecessarily lowering his stature by assailing a seemingly beleaguered federal health minister of a Karachi-based political party that is currently facing a serious internal strife owing to a variety of reasons.
Pirzada Imtiaz Shah (Karachi)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026