KARACHI, May 14: The Sindh government, acknowledging that nurses are the first line of any health care system, has chalked out an elaborate mechanism to create an enabling working environment, adequate promotion and salary structures coupled with a will to get nurses the status they deserve in society.

The Sindh Health Secretary, Prof Naushad Shaikh, chief guest at the inaugural session of the ‘International Nurses Day 2005’ celebrations at the School of Nursing, Aga Khan University on Saturday said special emphasis was being laid on training-cum-education programmes for nurses associated with government-owned health care facilities.

“What we expect in return is absolute commitment towards this noble work and maximum competency on the part of nurses,” he said.

The health secretary, referring to the theme, ‘Patients Safety — A Concern for Health Care Professionals’ said it held extreme relevance to all countries particularly to developing countries like Pakistan, which was exposed to urbanization, overcrowding, poor sanitation, environment degradations and a wide range of communicable and non-communicable diseases.

According to him, in the given situation, an extremely cautious approach was required by nurses in order to play an extremely critical role for the sake of patient safety.

“The system at the same time needs to play a supportive role to help nurses efficiently realize their responsibilities,” Prof Naushad Shaikh said, mentioning that required measures were being taken by the government for raising the salary structure of nurses complimented by a system of proper surveillance.

According to him, it was not only that nurses were being hired in a most transparent manner through the public service commission and that advertisement for vacant posts in government hospitals were being published, but equal attention was being extended towards update training programmes for young men and women interested in joining the profession.

This, he said, was extremely essential due to the ever-growing shortage of nurses in the country as well as in the province, where the population-to-nurse ratio was as low as one to 5,000.

“It will be right to mention that the Sindh Health Department has advertised about 279 posts of staff nurses,” he said, adding that five nursing training centres for men were already running in double shifts. The department was also planning to start double shift training programmes in female institutions.

Prof Naushad with regard to the safety of patients from counterfeit and sub-standard medicines reminded that patients, being the consumers, were the primary victims, and nurses could play a key role in establishing a regulatory mechanism.

Keynote speeches were made by Dr Khurshid Khawaja and Dr Farhat Abbas.

An inter-sectoral plenary session was also held. Speakers included Dr Raffat Jan, PhD in Nursing Informatics, who made her presentation on ‘Patient Safety - A Challenge for Today’s Nurses’; Dr Mairajuddin Shah on ‘Patient Safety in Global Perspective — Is Health Care Safe’; and Latif Sheikh, the Director Pharmacy, Nutrition at the AKU, who talked about ‘Patient Safety’.—APP