PESHAWAR: Healthcare system needs to be strengthened: minister
By Our Correspondent
PESHAWAR, Sept 29: NWFP Health Minister Inayatullah Khan has called upon health officials to strive to strengthen the primary healthcare system.
The minister was presiding over a meeting held to discuss ways of working out an effective mechanism for successful implementation of President’s Primary Health Project aimed at strengthening BHUs with public-private partnership.
District nazims, DCOs, health department officials and representatives of Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) attended the meeting.
During the meeting it was proposed that district governments would be taken into confidence before launching the project. The meeting suggested the constitution of steering committees at the district level to monitor the activities of the project.
Addressing the meeting, the health minister said the project was of utmost importance and its strengthening needed proper attention to ensure better health facilities to the people.
He assured the nazims that community participation and their suggestions would be accommodated before the signing of MoUs with the SRSP.
Initially, the project will be implemented in five districts for a period of two years. In case the project proves to be a success, it will be extended for another two-year period.
The districts where the project will be implemented in the first phase will be identified in the next meeting after Eid-ul-Fitr.
WORKSHOP: Health professionals should create awareness among the people against diseases, including HIV/Aids, and concentrate on preventive measures to stop transmission of the dreaded ailments.
Addressing participants of a workshop organised for capacity building of health professionals here on Friday, Director Health Services (Fata) Dr Mohammad Zubair said that as scientists have been unable treat HIV/Aids, maximum attention should be focused on preventive measures.
Participants of the workshop included doctors, nurses, paramedics and lady health visitors.
He said that such workshops were being organised to increase the capacity of health workers so that they could devise strategies to educate people on preventive measures.
He urged women health workers to educate the womenfolk on HIV/Aids transmission as in most cases the virus was transmitted to women by their husbands serving in foreign countries.
Dr Zubair said that the government had planned to form village health community to help vulnerable groups in the respective areas. So far 110 people in Fata have been tested positive for HIV/Aids, whereas most of the people were reluctant to undergo HIV/Aids tests in tribal belt, he added.
Dr Iftikhar Ali, manager of the Aids control programme for Fata, said that most of the HIV/Aids patients in Fata were those who had been deported from the Gulf states and in the absence of a proper screening system at airports in Pakistan they manage to slip through.
