KARACHI, Feb 18: The new health policy of Sindh will be announced in the first week of March, said a senior official of the health department here on Friday.

The new policy envisages a separate cadre for the medico-legal department and has set target of the year 2015 to bring down the infant and maternal mortality rates to zero.

Informing about the salient features of the new health policy, Secretary Health Dr Naushad Shaikh told Dawn that under the separate cadre for medico-legal department, an MLO could be promoted to the post of police surgeon. Besides, he said, the MLOs would also be appointed at the level of taluka hospitals.

The new policy envisages legal action against quacks and unregistered blood banks in the province. For this purpose, law has already been promulgated. According to the secretary health, action against the unregistered blood banks and quacks would be far easier and effective once it becomes part of the health policy.

Under the policy, a comprehensive strategy would be formulated to control the communicable diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, polio, hepatitis. Similarly, a comprehensive strategy would be chalked out to control non-communicable diseases, including cardiac aliments and diabetes.

Special focus on the research and prevention has been made in the new policy which envisages developing both these areas on modern technical grounds. The secretary said that the performance of the Rural Health Centre (RHC) would be monitored closely on the basis of which the centres would be upgraded to the level of taluka hospital.

In addition, specialists doctors would be appointed there, he added. Moreover, service structure for the paramedics and specialists cadre is formulated so that they could be promoted to the next grades.

Previously, promotions in the specialist cadre were being delayed in the absence of new health policy and paramedical staff rarely got promotion. The new policy aims to formulate their service structure on permanent grounds so that the paramedical staff could get their due promotions, Dr Naushad Shaikh added.