KARACHI: Joint efforts stressed to curb chest diseases
KARACHI, April 19: Sindh Senior Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed has said that the government will make sustained and concentrated efforts to prevent rising chest and other fatal diseases.
He was speaking as a chief guest at the inaugural session of the three-day international biennial conference on ‘Tuberculosis and lung diseases’, organised by the Pakistan Chest Society on Wednesday. He said health and education were the two main priorities of the government.
Sardar Ahmed said that the government had allocated maximum funds in health sector to provide better services to common man. He said that attainment of a disease-free Pakistan was only possible by collaborative efforts of public and private sectors. He asked philanthropists to come forward and help government in its efforts to minimize occurrence of fatal diseases like tuberculosis and cancer.
Referring to Chinese and Indian development in health and education sectors, he said that the same model of health and educational development would be adopted by the government to facilitate the masses. He said that management boards would be made in all public hospitals to improve their working.
He said that awareness programmes about fatal diseases would be launched at district and Taluka levels so that people could be informed about the fatal diseases and their prevention methods.
He asked doctors to work dedicatedly making the dream of disease-free Pakistan a reality, as they could play a miraculous role in this regard.
Sardar Ahmed said that fitness certificates would be issued after strict checking of vehicles and no vehicle would be allowed to ply on the road without the fitness certificate.
The vice-chancellor of Dow Medical University, Prof Masood Hameed, referring to the example of Bangladesh said that all rickshaws were now being run on CNG there. He demanded that the government should take a similar step here so that environmental and noise pollution could be minimised in the metropolis.
Dr Ashraf Sadiq, Dr Nasir Hussain, Dr Ahmed Pirzada and others also spoke on the occasion.
They called upon the government to set up smoking cessation clinics throughout the country to help smokers quit the habit and to enforce a comprehensive ban on both direct and indirect tobacco promotion and sponsorship in Pakistan.
They noted that despite legislation, tobacco was being sold to anyone at every nook and corner of the country.
A large number of delegates from the US, Canada, the UAE, Australia, India, Malaysia, Syria, Bangladesh and representatives from the WHO are attending the conference. —PPI
