LAHORE, May 20: The Punjab government has decided to create general and teaching cadres in the nursing profession and offer double promotion to FSc nurses in its forthcoming budget.
In the first phase, the decision will be implemented in all tertiary care hospitals in the province. It is pertinent to know that only few FSc pass nurses are available at all the teaching hospitals.
“The percentage of FSc nurses serving at the teaching hospitals was in a single digit,” Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed said at a press conference on Tuesday. He said the health department would train the FSc nurses and offer them BPS-16 instead of BPS-14. The nurses, to be promoted in BPS-16, would be called ‘Register nurse,’ he added.
He said the nurses, who would do their graduation, would be promoted to BPS-17 and called ‘Nursing officer.’ A nursing officer would be on a par with a medical officer.
Answering a question, he said the government would enhance the qualification up to FSc to admit students at nursing institutions for training.
PRIVATE MEDICAL FACILITIES: The minister said the health department was finalizing recommendations to regulate private clinics, hospitals and laboratories.
He hoped that the recommendations would be finalized by the end of this year and a bill would be presented before the Punjab Assembly for legislation. “This will be the next major health-related bill to be presented before the Punjab Assembly,” he said.
He also said 70 per cent patients in the province visited private practitioners for treatment. “As every profession has some black sheep, the medical profession needs to be purged from such elements risking the patients’ lives,” he said.
EQUIPMENT: The health department was working to make out-of-order electro-medical equipment functional, the health minister said. He added that a biplane angiography machine worth Rs50 million, which was lying at the Mayo Hospital’s neurology ward since 1984, had been made operational.
Replying to a question, he said the equipment identified by the governor’s inspection team would be made functional.
POLIO CASES: Punjab Health Services Director-General Dr Sabiha Khursheed said only two new polio cases had been detected in Multan.
SARS: The minister said no active case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome had been reported in the country.
He said the health department had taken all necessary measures by developing a specialized isolation unit in a separate building of the Services Hospital to guard against the disease.
Dr Ali said the department was also making efforts to create awareness among the masses about the disease and its prevention. The department had installed sign boards in coordination with the Lahore airport authorities to create awareness about SARS among passengers, he said. A meeting to train pilots and crew would be held on May 23, the minister added.
Replying to another question, he said no quarantine had been established at the Lahore airport, as the World Health Organization had not recommended its establishment at any airport in the world.
Meanwhile, Services Hospital pulmonologist Dr Kamran Cheema said the isolation unit established at the hospital had been equipped with necessary infrastructure, including a ventilator. He said doctors were also available at the unit, but it had yet to be utilized. The unit had a capacity to handle six SARS cases at a time, he said.
According to Dr Cheema, the symptoms of SARS appeared in a patient from two to nine days.
Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre’s infectious diseases specialist Dr Faisal Sultan said a special isolation unit, having six specialized rooms, had been set up at the hospital to handle SARS patients. He said trained staff was also available at the hospital.