Primary treatment facilities: New care units to reduce burden on LRH

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Health Department had decided to convert six civil dispensaries into primary health care centres.

These centres will provide basic health facilities to patients, who would normally go to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH)  and in turn decrease the number of patients going to the province’s largest hospital.

“Dentistry, general medicine, general surgery and gynaecological surgery will be available at these centres,” Special Secretary for Health Dr Noorul Iman told The Express Tribune. The patients will be divided between the centres and major hospitals, he added.

Equipment such as x-rays, ultrasound machines and operation theatre beds will furnish the medical units. Dr Iman said the centres will be constructed as soon as the funds are provided.

The six basic healthcare units will be chosen out of 15 civil dispensaries that currently function inside the city. According to the proposed plan, over Rs20 million will be spent on upgrading dispensaries and each centre will have 90 employees.

The programme was meant to be completed in June 2011, but was suspended for over a year. Dr Iman said that even if the patients at LRH are reduced by 30% it would be a great achievement for the health department as many patients with minor injuries flood emergency units. Established in 1924, LRH is the largest health care centre in the province and receives over 5,000 patients daily from K-P, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as well as Afghanistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2012.