Punjab Minister for Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Khawaja Salman Raffique has said that even a single patient with thalassemia was an enormous test for the family and that legislation is necessary to control the disease in Pakistan.
He said that thalassemia centres would be established at the divisional level all across the province. Khawaja Salman Raffique said that without switching over to a prevention based approach, treatment facilities would always be insufficient. “There is a need to adopt the ‘prevention is better than cure’ approach, and for this, public awareness is essential,” he said.
He stated this while addressing the concluding session of a training workshop on thalassemia for haematologists at the Fatima Jinnah Medical University (FJMU) Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), here on Saturday.
FJMU Vice Chancellor Dr Sardar Fakhar Imam, SGRH Medical Superintendent Dr Nauman Matloob, Punjab Thalassemia Prevention Programme Director Dr Shabnam, and haematologists from all over the country were also present in the concluding session.
During his welcome address, Dr Fakhar Imam stressed the need of collaboration among medical institutions for capacity building and the professional up-gradation of human resources. He said that human resources were the actual assets of any nation. Health Minister Khawaja Salman Raffique said that the Punjab government had taken different initiatives to decrease the workload on tertiary care hospitals and to provide medical facilities at the local level. The minister said that the revamping and up-gradation of district and tehsil headquarters hospitals (DHQs and THQs) was being carried out in the province.
He said that CT scan facilities would also be provided at every DHQ by the end of this fiscal year. He said that health insurance scheme had been launched in Punjab and 500,000 poor families were already benefiting from the scheme in Rahim Yar Khan. He said that 18 private hospitals in the district have been charged with providing medical cover to the registered families.
Moreover, the government is going to launch a joint venture with private hospitals through which hospitals attached with private medical colleges will be bound to provide consultancy and beds to poor patients under PMDC rules. The minister said that the government would provide grants to the hospitals for their services which would help redress the lack of medical facilities in the province.
Khawaja Salman Raffique said that the provincial government was procuring high quality medicines from multinational and national pharmaceutical companies and in the future, a procurement company would be set up in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Health.
He said that modern medicinal storage warehouses would also be established where all systems would be electronically controlled for ensuring the provision of quality medicines to patients. He further said that five-bed intensive care units (ICU) along with ventilators would be established in each DHQ during the current financial year.
Appreciating the hard works of doctors, nurses, and other staff in public sectors hospital, Khawaja Salman Raffique said that all the professionals attached to the health sector were providing the best healthcare facilities possible given the available resources and that acknowledgement of their services was essential.