June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

KARACHI, June 2: The Sindh health department has decided some steps towards upgrading of its paramedical training institutions across the province.

Sources in the health department said that a meeting of the Sindh Medical Faculty, a statutory body primarily responsible for the training of paramedical staff, was held after a long gap on Monday with the Health Secretary Shafiq A. Khoso in the chair. Principals of training institutes and medical superintendents of teaching hospitals attended the meeting.

The principals were told that efforts should be initiated at the earliest to improve the standards of training and examinations of the students admitted in various technical courses.

The secretary said that the principals of the autonomous institutions should utilise the funds, collected through admissions, on the improvement of training and other structural facilities, besides inducting trainers to meet the requisite standard and introduce new paramedical training courses.

It was decided in the meeting that honorarium of teachers coming from medical universities and colleges for delivering lecturers to trainees at the paramedical institutions should be increased to Rs300. Officials from the institutions should also visit the training institutions run in the private sector in Karachi and also go to Punjab and the NWFP to know the working and curriculum designs practiced there, the source added.

It was also noted at the meeting that the paramedical institute at Karachi should be revived and a summary prepared about the status of the institute, as well as about the equipment and other things that had gone missing after the establishment of a campus of the Dow University of Health Science at the Ojha Institute of Chest Diseases premises.

Talking to Dawn, Special Secretary of the department Dr Shafqat Abbasi said that introduction of a two-year diploma in paramedical courses, like those in Punjab, was also considered at the meeting and principals of the government institutions were asked to submit a joint plan after necessary studies.

Efforts were also being taken to increase intake of students at the government nursing schools as the non-availability of nurses for even government healthcare facilities was a matter of concern, he said.

He said that a summary was submitted to the chief minister for appointment of faculty members at the Sardar Ghulam Mohammad Mehar Medical College, Sukkur, against an approved SNE. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council had demanded appointment of qualified and regular teaching staff and provision of more facilities at the college, he added.