PESHAWAR, Jan 17: The provincial health department is working on a disaster management plan with the help of the World Health Organization.

A WHO representative said that hospitals in Peshawar would be strengthened to cope with any emergency situation. He said that coordination among various hospitals in the city would also be improved.

He said that the plan envisaged two 'rings' of hospitals for the city. The outer 'ring' would comprise four hospitals, Satellite Hospital Pabbi on the GT road, Nahaqi Hospital on the Charsadda Road, the Government City Hospital on the Kohat road and the Satellite Hospital in Garah Tajik on the Warsak Road.

The inner 'ring' would consist of five hospitals - Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex, Police and Services Hospital and Cantonment General Hospital.

He said that the plan was finalized in a meeting held last week at the Khyber Teaching Hospital that was attended by chief executives of KTH, LRH and HMC and other health officials.

It was agreed that Peshawar had vast 'catchment' areas in terms of patients with the GT Road in the East, Charsadda Road in the North, Kohat Road in the South and Khyber Road in the West.

Most of the casualties in adjoining areas are presumed to be taken to hospitals in Peshawar district. It was suggested that hospitals would be asked to identify a focal person for disaster management planning. Subsequently, all hospitals would conduct a situation analysis to deal with emergencies.

First such analysis would be conducted by the KTH followed by preparing disaster planning guidelines for the hospital, which would then be circulated to every hospital and focal persons there would prepare similar plans.

A command and control centre would be established to coordinate activities at the LRH, he said. It was also noted that ambulances in these hospitals were not properly equipped and lacked trained staff and communication equipment and it was decided to allocate resources for purchase of medicines, installation of equipment, training and regular exercise of staff in hospital.

The meeting agreed that other hospitals and welfare organisations working in the city would be involved in the planning and implementation of the disaster plan.

It was decided that the disaster management plan would be devised by the disaster management committee for Peshawar district, which would act as a model for similar plans for other districts. The WHO would help the KTH to help prepare a disaster management guideline similar to the disaster plan of Khyber Teaching Hospital.