Rawalpindi:District Health Authority (DHA) Rawalpindi has claimed that it would not allow any of the private entities including food outlets and private diagnostic laboratories to exploit their relations with the health department.
The issue of exploitation has come into question when the DHA organised a ceremony, a celebration here in a local hotel in collaboration with private business groups bringing explicitly or implicitly significant promotions to the businesses.
The event was attended by MNAs and MPAs, representatives from food authority, health officials, social figures, and members of the business community. Many health experts are of the view that taking private entities including food chains, laboratories, private hospitals etc. as sponsors by a department that is supposed to make sure that these business groups are not doing anything illegal or wrong is not ethical.
In the ceremony, shields were distributed among officials from almost all district allied departments by involving private businesses and it may give room to the businessmen to exploit their position, said a senior official from DHA Rawalpindi pleading anonymity.
Chief Executive Officer DHA Dr. Ehsan Ghani, when contacted by ‘The News’ on Tuesday said his office will not allow anyone to exploit working relationships with the health department. The DHA organised the event with the help of private entities taking it as a public private partnership but it does not mean that the health department would spare any business group for any violation, he added.
He explained that the DHA holds regular meetings with the officials of chamber of commerce to take possible support for activities in dengue season and for other campaigns but no business entity has ever been allowed to take any unfair benefit.
