Supply chain management: Health ministry asked to develop mechanism

Consortium calls for expanding newly-introduced health insurance over next five years

ISLAMABAD: A national health and population coordination consortium has recommended to the health ministry to develop a mechanism for collection of data and supply chain management for medical commodities, to deliver a continuous supply of health products.

The consortium also called for expanding the newly-introduced health insurance programme over the next five years.

The recommendations were made at a meeting of the National Health Services Regulations and Coordination and the consortium, chaired by Health Minister Saira Afzal Tarar, according to a press release issued here on Friday.

The progress of the NHSRC in the last two year on different health issues was shared with stakeholders including representative of economic affairs division, planning and development department, provincial health and population departments, international partners including the USAID, the World Bank, the Department of International Development, DAFT, the German embassy, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities,  the World Health Organisation, the UNAIDS and the UNICEF.

The minister said health was a vital component of human development, and only those societies achieve their development objectives which ensure optimal health and wellbeing of their citizens.

She also talked about priority areas including universal health coverage, mother and child health, immunisation, communicable disease control measures with a focus on international health regulations, non-communicable diseases and drug regulations.

Tarar said that national policy guidelines have been developed on population planning and on the basis of which provinces have developed their policies.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th,  2016.