Thursday, July 14, 2016
Healthcare Spending Increases 'Unsustainable'
Life-or-death 999 call target missed for year
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Philanthropist Edhi, 'Pakistan's Mother Teresa', buried after state funeral
By Syed Raza Hassan KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi, revered as a "living saint" in the South Asian nation, was buried on the outskirts of Karachi on Saturday after a state funeral attended by thousands of people. Edhi, 88, died late on Friday after a long kidney illness, triggering an outpouring of grief in the impoverished nation of 190 million for a man who transcended social, ethnic and religious divisions. At one moment during the country's first state funeral since the 1980s, a crowd broke through military lines at Karachi's National Stadium to help carry Edhi's coffin, which was draped with Pakistan's green and white flag and covered with rose petals.
China launches drive to eradicate violence against hospital staff
China is kicking off a year-long campaign this month to stamp out persistent violence in its overcrowded hospitals by angry patients targeting medical staff, state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday. Healthcare is a flashpoint for many people in China, who have long faced issues from ticket touts illegally trading appointment tickets, snarling queues to see top doctors and rampant corruption that can push up the cost of receiving care. Since 2013, campaigns to discourage abuse of hospital personnel have reined in much of the violence, but as many as 71,000 instances of conflict have still required mediation by authorities, it added.