CHITRAL: Leaders of political parties in Upper Chitral, including the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, have expressed their strong reservations over the reported privatisation of Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, Booni. They asked the government to refrain from going ahead with the idea of outsourcing the only hospital of the district to a private party, thereby making the secondary health facility beyond the reach of the common man. They made the demand during a multiparty conference held in Booni on Saturday. The participants, including Maulana Mohammad Yousuf of JUI-F, Maulana Javed Hussain of JI, Sardar Hussain of PPP, Prince Sultanul Mulk of PML-N and Farman Murad of PTI, rejected the decision of the government to privatise the hospital. Say hospital short of doctors, nurses and diagnostic facilities They said that instead of upgrading the hospital and providing better healthcare, the government was contemplating at depriving the already poverty-stricken people of affordable treatment facilities at their doorstep. They insisted that poor people would suffer once the hospital was privatised as fees would be jacked up. They said it would be sheer injustice with the people if they were put at the mercy of the private party whose only aim would be to make profits. The activists blasted the PTI government for failing to upgrade the facility to the District Headquarters Hospital even after the creation of the Upper Chitral district six years ago. The political leaders asked the government to pay special attention to strengthening the hospital, which is facing acute shortage of doctors, nurses and diagnostic facilities, while there was not a single lady doctor there. HUNTING PERMITS: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department has, for the first time, issued hunting permits for trophy hunting of 26 Himalayan Ibex in different conservancies of Lower and Upper Chitral districts for the current season. Farooq Nabi, divisional forest officer of wildlife division, Chitral, told Dawn that the department had decided earlier this year to introduce the trophy hunting of Himalayan Ibex in order to involve local communities in the conservation process. He said 80 per cent of the permit fee would go to the community for development. He said that this year, the permits were auctioned only for the locals and hunters from other districts of the country, while by next year, the permits might be extended to foreigners as well. Mr Nabi said that the base value of auction for local hunters had been fixed at Rs150,000 and that of non-locals at Rs250,000 . Shakeel Hussain, a young hunter from Upper Chitral, told Dawn that he won one of the permits at Rs200,000 after competitions for Booni-Charun conservancy.