News Details

20/12/2017

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has stressed on the curative measures for the total eradication of tuberculoses from the country.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has stressed on the curative measures for the total eradication of tuberculoses from the country. He inaugurated Mobile Unit of TB Eradication Program in five districts of the province in collaboration with Indus Hospitals Services. He announced that the program would be gradually extended to all divisions and districts of the province. He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Mobile Unit of TB Eradication Program under “Aao TB Mitao” campaign at Chief Minister House Peshawar. It was also addressed by Provincial Senior Minister for Health Shahram Tarakai, Secretary Health Abid Majeed, CEO Indus Hospitals Services Abdul Bari Khan and others who highlighted various aspects of the program as well as lauded steps of KP government for improving health services in the province. Under this program, Indus Hospitals Services would provide Rs. 7 billion for free treatment of TB patients in five big cities and districts of Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi and Dera Ismail Khan wherein well equipped medicare mobile units would be made available for free treatment of TB patients at their door steps. Chief Minister said that TB was among chronic and fatal diseases that badly affected the overall social fabric and productivity of a society. He said that TB control program was being designed for total eradication of the menace. He said that bringing this disease to the minimum level as per national and global targets was the top priority of the provincial government. He stressed all the stakeholders, the public, private organizations, children and youth of schools and colleges to actively participate in the campaign. He said that the previous diagnostic and testing system was not enough to fight out this disease effectively. He said that the new Gene Expert Machine would help the doctors to immediately diagnose the old TB patients and treat them accordingly. He thanked Dr. Abdul Bari Khan President Indus Health Network for extending this program to Peshawar and four other big cities of the province after its successful implementation in Karachi. Pervez Khattak on this occasion announced that the new TB eradication program would be extended to all divisional and district headquarters in the next phase to cover TB patients in nook and corner of the province. He said that providing free treatment facilities to the people especially the poor was part of the manifesto of PTI government. He regretted that this sector was also ignored in the past and even political interference was rampant in health instututions in the previous regimes. He however, assured that positive results were being coming out of the concrete steps and reforms introduced by the present provincial government in health sector that he said were matchless in entire history of the country. Chief Minister said that the process of reforms in the public sector health institutions and health delivery system would be continued to enable the people especially the poor segment of society to fully benefit of its fruits. He said our reforms and steps in health sector had to prominent aspects viz provision of quality health facilities to the general masses and secondly free treatment of the poor for chronic and costly diseases. He said that giving autonomy to the health institutions was hallmark of present KP government that enabled the health centres to solve its problems on its own. Pervez Khattak said that giving financial and administrative autonomy to the hospitals was in fact a challenge for the provincial government. He said the previous governments miserably failed in combating this challenge due to external pressures. However, he said we succeeded in this goal as well as we did not want to compromise on health of the poor, he added. He however said that doctors were messiah of the society and they could not perform their professional obligations satisfactorily when they were faced with financial problems. Hence he said that the second step that provincial government took was drastic increase in salaries of the health employees. He said that perks and privileges of doctors community have been enhanced from mere Rs. 45 thousands to Rs. 2 lakhs now because previously doctors were not happy to perform duty anywhere except in Peshawar and Abbottabad. Similarly, he said that the number of doctors was also increased from 2.5 thousand to 7.5 thousand to make them available in each and every health centre of the province. He said that now doctors as well as paramedical staff, equipments and medicines were made available in all health institutions and even in the remote hilly areas. Chief Minister said that besides the new appointments of doctors and paramedical staff, independent monitoring unit (IMU), provision of latest equipments, increase in allowances, establishment of pharmacy, insulin bank, incentives for mother and child maternity health services and ensuring cleanliness in hospitals were among those steps that brought about change in the health delivery system. He revealed that tele-medicines program was also been launched by next month in January to enable poor patients in remote areas to get diagnostic and treatment facilities from the specialist doctors sitting in hospitals of big cities through information technology. Pervez Khattak said that provincial government declared emergency in health sector with the sole aim to improve the health delivery system while free emergency treatment at hospitals was the second major step. Similarly, he said that free treatment of costly and chronic diseases like Cancer, Hepatitis and TB were also worth mentioning steps of provincial government to enable the poor to get quality health facilities. He said that sehat Insaf cards scheme was the fresh mega step to bring quality medicare facilities to the door steps of the poor wherein patient could get free treatment facilities from any public or private health institution upto Rs. Five lakh. He said that health cards have been provided to 24 lakh deserving families or 15 million persons that constitute 51% of the total population whereas one million more cards have been given to the deserving families in the third phase of the scheme. =======