Telemedicine project launched in four districts

Balochistan govt pledges to provide quality healthcare facilities in province

QUETTA:

The Balochistan government has launched a telemedicine initiative in the province and has started a pilot project for ensuring quality healthcare facilities to people.

"Initially, the telemedicine programme has been started in four districts of the province with the cost of Rs50 million which would be expanded across Balochistan,” Liaquat Shahwani, a spokesman to Balochistan government said while sharing the two year performance of the incumbent government.

The Balochistan government has procured 0.4 million bags of wheat this year and has decided to purchase one million wheat bags from the provincial food department to provide the commodity on subsidy prices to its masses.

Shahwani said that the incumbent government had established first ever rescue authority in order to provide proper first aid and ambulance facility during emergencies. The government has constructed 14 Medical Emergency and Response Centers (MERC) on Quetta-Karachi and Quetta-Zhob highways to provide medical facilities to the injured in road accidents.

He said the provincial government had established these emergency response centers along the highways in the first phase of the project.

"The Balochistan government has allocated Rs3 billion for the project and it will be expanded to construct more centers along every highway in the province," he said.

The government has prepared the Gwadar Master Plan with the consensus of all the stakeholders, including the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA) and the local parliamentarians.

Under the Gwadar Master Plan, he said, the local population would not be dislocated as the old city would also be developed.

Shahwani said presently Balochistan was totally different from the last decade, with 70 percent improved law and order situation.

“The government is bringing reforms in the Levies force to ensure security and protection to people" he added.

The Balochistan government, according to the spokesman, is also planning to revise the master plan of Quetta to channelise its present as well as future growth in a scientific and planned manner. It has increased the health budget in the current financial year by 32 percent to improve the vital sector in the province.

According to Shahwani, an amount of Rs7.050 billion has been earmarked for health sector development of the province in the current fiscal year.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2020.