RAWALPINDI, March 4: The provincial health department has decided to start double shifts in the out-patient departments (OPDs) of public hospitals for optimum utilization of available resources to facilitate patients.

The government feels that hospital equipment and other resources worth billion of rupees is being under utilized presently, Punjab health minister Prof (Dr) Mehmood Ahmad Chaudhry said while talking to Dawn. The decision, he added, also aimed at providing additional facilities to the rapidly growing population.

Instead of creating new hospitals with huge investments, we felt that measures like doubling the number of shifts and increasing other facilities through lesser investment would help ease the problem to a great extent, he said.

The health department, the minister said, had also decided to provide billion of rupees in the form of machinery, equipment, and human resources to the mega-hospitals, once they were fully autonomized.

Besides, Dr Chaudhry said, we had planned increase in budget of the hospitals so that they could effectively serve the people.

This all, he said, would be achieved through assistance from donor agencies, ending pilferage of resources by medical staff and start of institutional practice.

Samli Sanatorium Murree, he said, was being converted into a general hospital. “The tuberculosis treatment no more requires separate hospital and can be suitably administered to the patients at their homes”, he said while referring to the DOTS programme for treatment of TB.— Our Staff Reporter