KARACHI, Oct 13: A public health awareness programme on the subject on “Backache and Spinal Injuries” was organized by the Ziauddin Medical University on Sunday.

The chief guest Sindh Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh on the occasion said that it was duty of the health service providers to provide better quality service to the poor, who comprised majority of the population, either free or at a price that they could afford easily.

University’s chancellor Dr Asim Hussain giving a brief resume of the organization’s public health services said that a 120 bed hospital at the Keamari was heavily subsidized and many services — like admission, meals, specialists consultations, surgeries etc — were provided to the patients free.

He said that the patients only had to pay for medicines, and investigations other than routine investigations on a cost to cost basis. Its two primary health care centres were also functioning in a kutcha abadi catering to the needs of over 50,000 people.

An orthopaedic surgeon Dr I. A. Jokhio on the occasion said that every person suffered from the backache at least once in a lifetime. He said that now new and safer medicines were available that effectively treated pain and inflammation and had comparatively lesser side effects.

Prof Rasheed Juma in his brief talk described the anatomy of the spine and stressed on the importance of posture in preventing the problem. He said that now there was conclusive evidence that smoking and tobacco accelerated the degeneration process of the vertebrates, thereby accentuating back pain.

Dr Imtiaz Hashmi stressed the need for back exercise and physiotherapy. He also showed slides of successful spinal surgeries in patients who had spinal deformities. He also said that now with newer technologies available in the country excellent results could be expected from good surgeons.

The speeches were followed by a question answer session. A panel of doctors comprising Salabat Khan, Mairaj Siddiqui and others also participated in the question answer session.