Measles epidemic: ‘New policy to strengthen primary healthcare system’

Health managers, policy makers, managements need to work together.

LAHORE:

A new policy is being prepared to strengthen primary healthcare system, lay more focus on the prevention of diseases and remove gaps in the health sector, Health Secretary Hassan Iqbal said on Saturday.

He was addressing a seminar on measles here at the Post Graduate Medical Institute.

The secretary said the new policy would be unveiled soon. He said it would address the lacunae in the health provision system.



Iqbal said the public sector health provision was not up to the expectations of the people and there was a dire need to improve it.

He said the government had a responsibility to provide the resources needed for adequate healthcare. The experts and health managers, he said, had to make policies and strategies for the prevention of diseases and provision of best possible health facilities.

The health secretary said the health managers, policy makers and the managements had to work together to make a strong healthcare delivery system.



He said if public institutions were strong and functional “we will not have to face emergency situations every six months.” “The continuity of the policies is essential for success. With the present government, we have this opportunity,” he said.

He said the department had done well to control the spread of dengue fever in the Punjab.

“We should acknowledge the services of doctors, nurses and paramedics who are serving at grassroots level,” he said.

Iqbal hoped that the measles epidemic would be controlled soon.

Earlier, Principal Anjum Habib Vohra and Prof Agha Shabbir of the PGMT said more than 600 measles patients had been admitted at the LGH since January. They said only three had died of the disease.

Former adviser to chief minister on health Khawaja Salman Raffique said that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was personally monitoring the efforts for controlling measles.

He said the government and the health department were taking all possible steps to control the measles epidemic.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2013.