ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) has accelerated its efforts to bring the Basic Health Units (BHU) and Rural Health Centres (RHC) of the federal capital under the umbrella of the ministry, Pakistan Today has learnt reliably.
In this regard, State Minister for CADD Dr Tariq Fazal Chauhdry held an important meeting with Federal Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal recently and discussed the matter threadbare.
According to sources, both ministers have principally agreed to integrate the health system under one ministry at the earliest so as to upgrade the health sector in order to alleviate the masses.
For this purpose, the CADD Ministry has recently taken efforts to strengthen its health management wing in addition to the announcement of a few crucial changes in the hierarchy, sources informed. Moreover, the recruitment of many health experts in the ministry is also underway.
It is pertinent to mention here that the CADD Ministry is looking after the main hospitals in the city including Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) and Polyclinic, while the health department of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office is responsible for maintaining health in the rural areas of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
The first level health services are being delivered through three RHCs and 14 BHUs, but they all lack the basic facilities due to which PIMS and Polyclinic are burdened by major patient traffic.
Though the government made minimal efforts to revive the abysmal state of the health sector during the last four years, the decision to bring the BHUs and RHCs under the CADD is a welcomed one since the ministry maintains a team of experts to run the affairs in an effective manner.
The CADD, in the past, has also offered services of its medical postgraduates (PG) placed at PIMS and Polyclinic to RHCs and BHUs to address the health issues.
They concluded that the absence of basic health facilities not only puts mounting pressure on capital’s two state hospitals but also endangers the lives of people who need urgent medical care in their respective BHUs and RHCs.
They went on to add that the population of Islamabad has witnessed an alarming increase during the past few years, but the government has failed to upgrade the healthcare facilities nor has it mulled building any new hospital in the federal capital.
However, they were hopeful that if the current integration plan is executed in its true sense, it would bring tremendous changes in the health sector.
“Various stakeholders in the health sectors had been called to the then PM Nawaz Sharif back in 2016 during which he expressed his disenchantment over the state of government health facilities and services provided in Islamabad,” they added.
Therefore, the PM constituted a committee with special assistant to the then PM Khawaja Zahir-ud-Din Ahmed as its coordinator. The committee was tasked to chalk out a plan to ascertain how the segmented health system could be brought under one umbrella.
Talking to Pakistan Today, a senior official in the CADD Ministry Dr Minhaj-us-Siraj said that under the integration plan, it was proposed that the periphery centres , BHUs and RHCs would be upgraded, besides developing a proper referral system, which he added would eventually ease the unnecessary load to the main hospitals.
He said that under the plan, it was proposed that a community-based service would be initiated in which the community representatives, for instance, the union councilors and other district elected representatives would be involved in the monitoring system.
Dr Manhaj said that work on preparing district health plan is underway, which he said would be finalised soon. This will boost the community-based nursing care system along with making an effective ambulance service which is also a part of the proposed plan.
He also said that the up-gradation and development of the centres is essential so that minor ailments can be treated in BHUs and RHCs and the people do not have to make visits to major hospitals for minor ailments such as flu and cough.
When Pakistan Today contacted CADD Secretary Nargis Ghaloo, she said that Khawaja Zaheer-led committee has presented its final report to the premier recently; hence some sort of mechanism would be developed to integrate the health sector under one ministry at the earliest.
She said that it was really a good idea, which, she added was initiated from the PM office, hoping that it would materialise soon.
