KARACHI: Former president retired General Pervez Musharraf was admitted to PNS Shifa Hospital on Thursday after he “felt discomfort in breathing and chest congestion” and was discharged by the facility after more than five hours with “advice from doctors for his treatment abroad”, his party spokesperson said.

Gen Musharraf, who is the founding chief of his faction of All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), complained of breathing and then pain in the chest in the afternoon.

He was rushed to the PNS Shifa Hospital where doctors in the emergency unit of the hospital treated him and put him under observation for more than five hours.

“He was finally released at nearly 8pm,” said the party spokesperson Aasia Ishaque Siddiqui.

“The doctors have increased the dosage of daily medicine. Similarly, Mr Musharraf has been advised for his immediate treatment abroad. The fresh advice from the doctors is not of new kind as the medical board constituted by the federal and provincial government twice in two years had recommended the same treatment for Mr Musharraf.”

She said the medical board set up by the federal government had examined the former president at the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi and recommended his angiography abroad while the same was the finding of another team of health experts who were assigned by the Sindh government while he was staying at his Karachi residence.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2016