PESHAWAR, Jan 6: NWFP Minister for Health Inayatullah has underlined the need for capacity building of health personnel, to graduates of the Masters degree course in Public Health at the Institute of Management Sciences (IMS) , Hayatabad here on Tuesday, says a handout.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony as chief guest, he said: "without the proper development of human resources, we could neither utilise our resources efficiently, nor would we achieve the goal of development and progress."

He said that lack of well-trained and qualified personnel was the main cause of backwardness in the country, and poor utilisation of resources. Quoting an example, he said that Japan, despite having meagre natural resources was playing a dynamic role in the economic field because it was giving due attention to the development of human resources.

The minister deplored that due to absence of qualified manpower in management, our health delivery system was not working efficiently. He said the present government would have to introduce a separate management cadre in the health sector in order to overcome this problem. Welcoming the newly introduced course in Public Health Management by IMS, the minister said the government would encourage such initiatives.

He went on to say that due to scarce resources, the government was unable to provide healthcare facilities to all its citizens. "Only by improving our management system and giving proper attention to prevention, we can reduce the burden of disease," he remarked.

Earlier, Director IMS, Nasir Ali Khan, while highlighting the academic and training courses of the institute, stressed the need for provision of better training facilities in the country to meet the challenges of the time, and bring about necessary changes in health sector and save precious foreign exchange. Faculty members, medical experts and students of the institute also attended the ceremony.-PPI