PESHAWAR: The health department has established a modern facility to provide free treatment to children having clubfoot deformity, according to a statement.

The statement said that the facility was set up at Paraplegic Centre Peshawar (PCP) in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to treat children free of cost. The state-of-the-art facility was inaugurated by Akbar Jan Marwat, the caretaker health minister, here on Tuesday.

The facility called “Clubfoot Home” will use the “Ponseti method” for correction of clubfoot. The method is described to have 95 per cent success rate.

The minister said that the facility was equipped to provide quality treatment to 24 children with clubfoot per day.

“There was a tremendous need for a facility that could offer various services for the treatment of clubfoot deformity under one roof. The free treatment will benefit thousands of families,” he said.

Briefing the minister, PPC chief executive officer Syed Mohammad Ilyas said that soon the facility would act as a referral centre for complicated cases from all other clubfoot clinics of the province.

“To ensure uninterrupted treatment of the people, we will offer accommodation and cover the cost of travel for those coming from far-flung areas,” he added.

Reto Stocker, the IRC Head of Delegation in Pakistan, said that their focus in the country was to develop local partnerships and promote best practices.

“This centre is another example of how ICRC is reaching out to people in need of humanitarian assistance. This strategy has the strength of bringing sustainability to the country’s humanitarian response mechanism,” he added.

As part of its physical rehabilitation programme in Pakistan, ICRC established a special clinic at Muzaffarabad Physical Rehabilitation Centre in 2010 to treat children with clubfoot. Since then, around 4,000 children have received treatment at the six ICRC-supported centres being run in collaboration with partner organisations including Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2018