Press Release
KPK Regional and District Health Authorities Act 2019:
Gradual Privatization of Government Hospitals Will Crush the Suffering Poor

While passing the Regional and District Health Authorities Act 2019, the KPK Provincial Minister of Health, Dr. Hisham Inam Ullah Khan, declared that, “we are a poor country, we don’t have enough capacity that we can provide free health service to everyone, provide free medicine and free doctors. We will bring public-private partnership in some places and raise costs as well in some places.” The regime that claims to make Pakistan a state like Madina, providing welfare for its people, is exposed. Clearly, Democracy is designed only to benefit the capitalist, ruling elite, providing legal cover to their corruption, whilst leaving the poor to face the brutality of capitalism alone. After the passage of this new act, all provincial hospitals, rural health centers, dispensaries, mother and child care centers and government laboratories will be handed over to regional and district health authorities. These authorities will receive limited financial resources and the rest have to be arranged by themselves, which simply means that either the poor will pay to cover their state hospital medical bills or they will have to simply die off in anguish.

Already 75% of the population of Pakistan gets health treatment from private hospitals, because state hospitals not only lack facilities, their quality of care is abysmal. Now even the poor, which have no choice but to use state hospitals is deprived of free or low cost care, as bad as it is. Democracy has made basic health services a luxury, where patient are considered paying customers, to be squeezed to ensure hefty profits. Despite this stark reality, the current rulers insist they are not privatizing healthcare and only improving state hospitals. In the capitalist West, people are facing the same issues with health care, as health facilities are handed over to insurance companies. Globally, Democracy has ensured that capitalist insurance companies and private hospitals to secure substantial profits.

Islam declares health, education and security societal needs. Islam obliges the Khaleefah to ensure the availability of such facilities in society. Imam Muslim narrated from Jabir (ra), «أَرْسَلَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِلَى أُبَيِّ بْنِ كَعْبٍ طَبِيبًا، فَقَطَعَ مِنْهُ عِرْقًا، ثُمَّ كَوَاهُ عَلَيْهِ»“Jabir reported that Allah's Messenger (saaw) sent a physician to Ubayy b. Ka'b. He cut the vein and then cauterised it.” Al-Hakim narrated in his Mustadrik from Zaid Bin Aslam, who narrated from his father that he said: “I fell severely ill in the era of Umar Bin Khattab, so he called a doctor who heated my body and after that I became so strong that I used to chew the date seed.” And RasulAllah (saaw) said, «وَالإِمَامُ رَاعٍ وَمَسْئُولٌ عَنْ رَعِيَّتِهِ»“The ruler is a guardian and responsible for his subjects” (Al-Bukhari: 2751). Providing health facilities in society are one of the basic responsibilities of an Islamic State. Khaleefah Al-Mansor established a hospital, Bimaristan Al-Mansori, in 1283, and until today, the world has not witnessed such a great hospital. It could accommodate eight thousand patients, in which every patient was provided two attendants to take care of him. Democracies and dictatorships have failed to protect the rights of the people. Only the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood, ruling by all that Allah (swt) has revealed, can secure humanity from the capitalist system of looters and plunderers.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Pakistan