Pak PM Imran Khan directs Punjab govt to extend best medical care to Nawaz Sharif

Lahore, Oct 23: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has directed the Punjab government to ensure that former premier Nawaz Sharif gets the best possible medical care in accordance with the wishes of his family, media reports said on Wednesday.

Sharif, 69, was shifted to the Services Hospital in Lahore on Monday after his condition deteriorated with critically low platelet count. The three-time former prime minister and supreme leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) is serving a seven-year prison term since December 24, 2018 when the accountability court convicted him in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case - one of the three corruption cases filed following the Supreme Court's 2017 order in the Panama Papers scandal.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the government's chief spokesperson Firdous Ashiq Awan said Prime Minister Khan had sought a detailed report from the Punjab government regarding Sharif's health. Khan further directed the Punjab government to ensure that Sharif gets the best possible medical care in accordance with the wishes of his family. Awan said the premier had "prayed for Sharif and wished him a speedy recovery", the Dawn reported.

A medical board headed by Dr Ayaz Mahmood on Tuesday examined Sharif at the hospital and transfused platelets to him. "Sharif's platelet count has increased to 20,000 from 2,000," PML-N leader Attaullah Tarar said. He said doctors still called Sharif's condition "serious" and he will remain in hospital till it improves.

According to doctors, normal platelet count ranges between 150,000 and 400,000. Meanwhile, an accountability court here on Wednesday rejected PML-N leader and Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz's request to be granted an hour to meet her father in hospital, the Dawn said. The PML-N vice president made the request during court proceedings in the Chaudhry Sugar Mills case, the Dawn said.

bSharif is already in the custody of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on money laundering charges. During the proceedings on Wednesday, the court asked the NAB investigation officer when a reference would be filed in the case, to which he responded that the reference had entered the final stages of preparation and would be filed after approval from the NAB chairman, the Dawn reported. Accountability Court Judge Chaudhry Ameer Mohammad Khan meanwhile extended the judicial remand of Maryam and her cousin, Yousaf Abbas, till October 25, the report added.