Pakistan allows 100 critical patients daily sans documents

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Pakistan has been allowing at least 100 critical patients via Torkham crossing without passport and visa from the past one month, an official said on Wednesday.

Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Sadiq Khan on his Twitter handle said that critical patients could enter Pakistan via Torkham for medical treatment.

Public Health Department Spokesperson NaqibullahRahimi told Pajhwok Afghan News a Commission comprising specialist doctors had been formed who would receive applications from patients for traveling to Pakistan without travel documents.

The commission makes the list of applicants according to the seriousness of their health condition and facilitates their journey to Pakistan.

Rahimi said individuals who could be provided medical treatment in the country were not eligible for the process and only those patients whose treatment was not possible in Afghanistan could be entertained.

“This process is properly administered, really those individuals whose treatment is not possible in Afghanistan are facilitated and others are rejected,” he said.

Rahimi said from the past one month 6,000 persons — one patient and one family member — were facilitated to go to Pakistan without documents for treatment.

He said people suffering from cancer, heart complications, kidney and other diseases, the treatment of which is not possible in Afghanistan, are facilitated to go to Pakistan without documents.

Patients and their family members accompanying them were also happy about the process.

Atal, who took his mother for treatment to Pakistan, said: “Twenty days ago I went to Pakistan through this process and two days back I returned after completing my mother’s treatment.”

This process is underway at a time when recently getting Pakistan’s visa has become a difficult task. In black market, the price of Pakistan’s visa reached $900.

nh/ma

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