State-run hospitals in Balochistan to open ‘smart’ OPDs

Meeting expresses concern over rise in coronavirus cases

QUETTA: The government hospitals across the province are going to start “smart” outpatient departments (OPDs) to resolve medical issues of people. The OPDs were closed in March in order to stop spread of contagious novel coronavirus.

The decision to open smart OPDs was taken in a meeting chaired by Balochistan Health Secretary Dostain Jamaldini on Friday. The meeting was attended by Balochistan Health Director General Dr Saleem Abro, Quetta Civil Hospital Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Fazlur Rehman Bugti and DMS Dr Javed Akhtar and Bolan Medical University’s (BMU) DMS Dr Rashid.

Medical expert including Prof Baqi Durrani, Prof Ghulam Rasool, Prof Jalal Khan Achakzai, Prof Shoaib Qureshi, Prof Nadeem Samada and as well as Balochistan Young Doctors Association spokesperson also took part in the moot.

The members reviewed the decision of opening OPDs in hospitals amid coronavirus pandemic which has affected 4,087 people in the province and killed 46 people till filing of the report.

The meeting decided that the duty officers, postgraduate students and on-call professors from each department would be assigned the task to prescribe treatment at the OPDs.

(With input from APP)

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2020.