KARACHI: Health Forum suggests transparency and accountability
KARACHI, Jan 10: The Sindh Health Department has chalked out a programme to strengthen the existing health infrastructure in the province with major focus on transparency and improved monitoring of the public as well as private sector health care facilities.
Sindh Health Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed speaking at the the Forum organised by the health department here on Wednesday said the government was committed to providing quality health care to the people belonging to both rural and urban areas.
The forum attended by senior health care professionals, economists, social scientists, researchers, representatives of NGOs and private as well as public sector medical colleges and universities explicitly discussed measures required to improve the health-care system in the province.
“It is with the very view that the government will offer special allowances and other facilities to health-care professionals serving in the rural areas,” he said.
Syed Sardar Ahmed mentioned that the policy adopted by the Punjab Health Department would be replicated in Sindh too so as to ensure the provision of required care at the doorsteps of the people.
On the occasion, he also mentioned that the Sindh Health Department had recently hired services of 761 doctors through the public service commission, after a long period of ban on fresh recruitments. “We also plan to hire specialists on a contract basis and will encourage them to serve in the rural health centres and district/taluka hospitals,” he said.
The health minister further said that there were 1,358 rural health centres and basic health units working under the Sindh Health Department, 83 district/taluka hospitals 11 tertiary-care hospitals, six teaching hospitals and specialised health- care centres.
A total of 19,800 doctors were said to be working in these government facilities with 2,000 nurses and 6,000 paramedics with 20,000 other staff serving there.
With a view to improving health status of the masses the sections working under the public health and health departments respectively will be bifurcate so as to ensure equal attention towards prevention and cure.
The health minister said the Sindh government had allocated a budget of Rs7.5 billion for the health sector with Rs1.60 meant for development.
He said since assuming the responsibility as health minister, he had restricted the rampant practice of detailment as well as that of posting and transfer which greatly affected the masses.
He also referred to 14 different projects under way in Sindh with the funding of the federal government and/or WHO, UNICEF or/and any foreign/ international agency.
The Sindh health minister also mentioned that two extremely relevant bills – the Patients Rights and the Registered Drugs -- already presented before the provincial assembly, and once adopted would help improve health-care needs of the people.
The bill with regard to Registered Drug and role of drug control authority, he said, was a little cumbersome as the function and capacity of provincial as well as federal officials often overlapped, causing confusion.
Syed Sardar Ahmed sought support, recommendations and suggestions of the participants representing both the public and private sectors to help the department in bringing about a positive and meaningful change in the health sector. Other participants of the forum regretted that Pakistan despite having a strong infrastructure, right from the grass-root levels to tertiary care, could not make appropriate and optimum use of these.
They the social sector in total was ignored in the country and recommendation of allocating six per cent of the GDP for health and eight per cent for education was generally ignored.
This was said to be in a scenario where the fact was globally recognized that improved social conditions and economic stability were inter-linked. Poverty and illiteracy were the major threats that could expose nations, states and the world in general to serious conditions.
Dr Kaiser Bengali, Prof Abdul Ghaffar Billoo, Prof Syed Adibul Hasan Rizvi, Prof Fareeduddin Baqai, Prof Masood Hameed, Prof Naushad Shaikh, Dr Asim Hussain, Ms Imtiaz Kamal and several others attending the programme and expressed their views. —APP
