LAHORE: Punjab Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education (SH&MEC) Minister Khawaja Salman Rafique has directed the Punjab Health Foundation (PHF) to take immediate steps for launching soft and small loan schemes for young doctors, house officers and senior clinicians so that they may set up clinics and purchase equipment.
The minister also directed that an awareness campaign through media be carried out to motivate unemployed doctors to set up clinics. He was of the view that by setting up clinics in streets and mohallas, services of qualified doctors would be available the common man that would be helpful in eradicating quackery.
Khawaja Salman Rafique stated this while presiding over a meeting of the PHF board of governors, here on Thursday. Secretary Specialised Healthcare Najam Ahmed Shah, Special Secretary Dr Sajid Mehmood Chohan, PHF MD Ajmal Bhatti, Professor Ess Muhammad, senior officers of finance, population welfare, and social welfare departments and the PHF DMD also attended the meeting.
The board approved an increase in daily wage salaries of the employees of the foundation and directed that the notification issued for the salary schedule by the finance department should be followed.
PHF MD Ajmal Bhatti informed that at present a loan of up to Rs 700,000 is being awarded without any property mortgage, on the basis of documents and a personal guarantee. He also informed that recovery of PHF loans is hundred percent and that a soft loan of Rs 200,000 is also being offered to nurses and other paramedics for establishing their set up.
The meeting also reviewed the cases of waving a surcharge amount of the loan for doctors who are either dying or seriously ill. However, the board advised the PHF to put up these cases in the next meeting along with complete documented proof.
Najam Ahmed Shah directed MD Ajmal Bhatti to sensitise general practitioners and young doctors regarding loan schemes of the foundation and by generating SMS’s using the GPs data available with the health department.
A proposal was discussed in the meeting that PHF would establish an urban health centre in the city as a pilot project, for this purpose any dispensary of the district would be set up where an outpatient department and referral services would be provided.
The urban health centre would be attached to a teaching hospital. If the pilot project is successful then it would be further replicated.
