NICVD is a heartbreaking hospital, Dr Nadeem Qamar is boss of all thieves says, Haleem

KARACHI: Haleem Adil Sheikh, Leader of the Opposition, Provincial Assembly of Sindh, visited the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases (NICVD) to express solidarity with protesting employees of the institute.

While talking to media persons at the occasion, Haleem Adil Sheikh stated that patients were already not getting adequate healthcare facilities at NICVD. Now nurses, paramedical staff, and other institute employees were compelled to stage protests fulfilment their demands. 

He expressed that the Sindh government claimed that people from abroad come to NICVD for treatment, but the state of affairs there was highly distressing. “NICVD is no more a centre for curing hearts but become a heartbreaking hospital,” he commented.

He said that due to the non-availability of stunts in the institute, many patients were treated with balloon angioplasty from September 17 to 25, which tantamounts to deceiving the patients and a clear violation of medical ethics.

The annual budget of NICVD was Rs. 12 billion, while in the last few years, they have also received additional funds amounting to Rs. 41 billion, but the institute was being run on Zakat from the previous six months, Haleem Adil Sheikh observed. 

He alleged that Rs. 7 billion out of the annual budget of Rs. 12 billion were being embezzled as the PPP Sindh government had turned NICVD into a hotbed of corruption, and Dr Nadeem Qamar, Executive-Director, NICVD, was a patron of all the thieves.

He said that Naveed Qamar’s monthly salary was more than Rs. 6 million, and he had received Rs. Two hundred fifty-six million in the last three years.

Around 7 thousand employees of NICVD were entitled to get a monthly allowance of Rs. 17,000 each while there were arrears of over Rs. He added that one hundred million, but their due amount was not being paid to the employees who served as frontline workers.

He stated that there were several corruption cases against NICVD under proceeding in courts and NAB, and a legal firm of a PPP stalwart was paid Rs.16 million for defending their corruption. Still, employees were deprived of their rightful outstanding amount on the pretext of the scarcity of funds.

Meanwhile, millions of rupees were spent on unnecessary air travel. Several favoured people were inducted on exorbitant salaries. Still, NICVD employees who raised voices for their legitimate rights were coerced by the administration, he said, adding that He termed it sheer injustice to the employees who put their lives and wellbeing at risk for service to humanity.

Haleem Adil Sheikh expressed that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was spreading at an alarming rate in Sindh. The positivity ratio has touched 15 per cent, while the vaccination ratio in Sindh was the lowest across Pakistan.

Though health is a provincial subject, the federal government provided millions of doses of vaccines to Sindh that spent not a single rupee on vaccine procurement. He noted that, but here in Sindh, even the vital vaccine was stolen.

Saeed Afridi, a member of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, speaking at the occasion, said that health sector employees were frontline workers who risk their lives to save ailing humanity and deprive them of their rights as a matter of grave concern and injustice.