May 31, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 30: The ministry of health plans to set up 900 clinics in seven cities in order to reduce the pressure on overburdened secondary and tertiary hospitals. The newly-introduced concept of urban health clinics envisages the establishment of a clinic in every union council of seven selected districts. The districts chosen for the project are Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta and Peshawar.

Federal Health Minister Nasir Khan told a gathering of district nazims and health officials that the federal government would finance the project for three years. Subsequently, the clinics will be transferred to the relevant district governments that are already running the health departments in their areas.

Health Secretary Khushnood Akhtar Lashari said that due to an expanding urban population, health facilities are needed at the community level.

The new healthcare centres are conceptualised as filter clinics for secondary and tertiary hospitals, and will ultimately reduce the patient load on the bigger hospitals.

They will employ a medical doctor, a nurse and a lady health visitor, and will provide 22 emergency medicines. The clinics will also serve as referral facilities and will work on two shifts depending on the requirement.

District nazims have been asked to identify locations for the new clinics and submit their proposals to the Ministry of Health within a week.

The government asserted that the major infrastructure required to set up urban health clinics is already in place, and that service delivery alone will be consolidated under the new plan.

This casts some doubt on the potential impact of the new scheme.

Furthermore, tertiary hospitals are overburdened because of citizens’ lack of confidence in the existing network of primary healthcare centres.

However, the meeting did not address the question of winning back public confidence.