Health care: With 30% set aside for development, health dept wants Rs11b

Department plans 59 new schemes, including 16 for teaching hospitals and a rescue service.

KARACHI: The Sindh Health Department has proposed a budget of Rs11 billion to the provincial government for the upcoming annual budget, with 30 per cent funds set aside for development, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The proposed budget is five billion rupees higher than the last year, but no change is expected in the percentage spending on development, which will remain at five per cent of the total Annual Development Programme as in the outgoing year.

For the fiscal year 2012-13, the department has proposed 59 new schemes, including 16 for teaching hospitals, 35 for other government hospitals, one project for medical education, training and nutrition, and four for management of preventive diseases apart from one foreign-aided project.

For the coming year at least, the government’s priorities seem well placed, as schemes have also been planned for neglected diseases, such as autism, blood ailments and non-communicable diseases, etc.

Under a public-private partnership programme, 10,000 leukaemia patients in the province will be eligible for free medicines.

Some other rapidly-growing health threats like hepatitis will also be focused. In order to facilitate early detection of breast cancers, the government has allocated Rs100 million for multiple screening programmes. The coming year’s budget will also focus on drafting laws to control the growing number of cases of thalassemia in the province.

An autism centre has been planned for Karachi with a budget of Rs200 million. More centres for non-communicable diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular, mental, urological and blood disorders, are planned in three major cities – Karachi, Sukkur and Hyderabad.

Fibroscan machines have been proposed for Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences in Hyderabad, Peoples Medical College in Nawabshah, Ghulam Muhammad Mahar Medical College in Sukkur and Chandka Medical College in Larkana. Similarly, the equipment in catheterisation laboratories at the Qatar hospital and Civil hospital in Karachi, and LUMHS and GMMMC, will be supplemented.

The other projects planned for Karachi include setting up a central blood bank, a healthcare call-centre, extension of Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) and another organ transplantation centre.

A medical college in Karachi and one each in Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad are also to be established. Other schemes planned for Hyderabad include setting up a cardiovascular and a paediatric hospital, and a kidney centre, with allocated funds of Rs500 million, Rs300 million and Rs200 million, respectively. A food testing laboratory is also planned for the city and another campus of SIUT will be established in Sukkur.

A sum of Rs100 million has been proposed to start a province-wide ambulance service programme, on the lines of the Rescue 1122 in Punjab.

Also among the government’s priorities is the training of health employees at the Provincial Health Development Centre.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2012.