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| April 5, 2003 | Saturday | Safar 2, 1424 |
Minister for revival of dialysis scheme
ISLAMABAD, April 4: Health minister Mohammad Nasir Khan on Friday said the government would consider revival of the national dialysis treatment scheme (NDTS) in a cost effective way.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of 4th biennial conference of Pakistan Society of Nephrology (PSN) here at a local hotel, he said the government would also consider to establish an executive board to develop guidelines for running the NDTS scheme in a way that leakages and misuse were checked.
He said the NDTS scheme, initiated during the Nawaz Sharif government, was launched without realizing consistent availability of funds. As a result of this lacunas, the funds available with the Baitul Maal scheme and Zakat dried up, he said.
He said the health ministry would intensify efforts to get passed the kidney transplantation law through the parliament. The law would help remove the ethical problem of the ongoing kidney trade, he added.
He was informed during the conference that a private member bill to this effect was moved in the Senate some nine years ago and was still awaiting its approval from the legislators.
The minister expressed shock that there existed only 64 nephrologist in the country, but assured that specialists posts for nephrologists would be created in different hospitals.
He agreed that giving training to the people inside the country was more conducive than sending them abroad saying: “After the 9/11 events, our professionals have started looking inward and have realized the need of believing in our capabilities instead of looking towards others.”
The minister said the budgetary allocations for health should be enhanced since the proportion of the country’s GDP was extremely small. The government would encourage private-public partnership in health sector with substantial contributions from philanthropists since a large number of people were suffering from renal failures, the treatment of which was very expensive, he added.
“We would like to see more result oriented programmes,” he said.
The minister also asked the doctors to look after the poor patients by considering them VIPs.
He said the politicians wasted 18 years by fighting each other and in the end they become brothers and sisters. In the meantime, the people of this country suffered badly owing to the acrimony they created in the society.
“We the politicians have tremendous responsibility to create harmony and bring back sanity in the society,” he said adding poverty and ignorance were the lethal combination against humanity. The Higher Education Commission chairman, Dr Attaur Rehman, said the commission was ready to fund a research programme to help manufacture indigenous dialysis machines.
He said it was shocking to learn that Pakistan had only 500 dialysis machines when the number of renal patients were increasing day by day.
He also emphasized the need of developing a training institute of nephrology in the country.
The PSN president, Dr Sameeh J. Khan, asked the government to revive the NDTS saying the funds collected in the head of Zakat should be utilized to run the scheme. The PSN patron, Prof Jaffer Naqvi, also spoke on the occasion.
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