KARACHI, May 4: The Aga Khan University is developing some models of primary healthcare and social development, which could be implemented by the government in the case of marginalised communities, squatters and Katchi Abadis across the country.

This was stated by leaders of the Community Health Sciences Department of the university at a press briefing, which was arranged on Friday, after a university-communities interactive session aimed at developing strategic plans for public-private partnerships in primary healthcare.

They focussed on healthcare needs of country’s poorest communities and stressed for devising models to tackle the same on broader scale. AKU faculty staff and students, NGO workers, nazims from a few union councils and the community health professional were involved in the process.

Newsmen were briefed by AKU Community Health Sciences Chairman Dr Gregory Pappas, Dr Mehtab S. Karim, a senior faculty member, Dr M. Yousuf Memon, the coordinator of Urban Health Programme, and Baba Islands UC Nazim Muhammad Haneef.

About the acceptability of the proposed action plans and models at the government level, Dr Pappas said the community health sciences department had received some encouraging indications from the federal and provincial governments on the subject.

Dr Karim said the university had been taking students to the communities to make them understand their problems and participate in the development of a sustainable and mutually beneficial partnership with selected squatters’ communities in Karachi. “Among other things, we could go for demographic surveillance system, examine the avenues and opportunities for capacity building in the communities and criteria of leaving the communities to stand on their own,” he said.