KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed health department to work out a plan to start non-stop pediatric Out-Patient Department (OPD) in all the government hospitals from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M.
The chief minister issued these directive chairing a meeting in which ChildLife Foundation, a government partner, gave him a presentation on child health in Sindh.
The foundation told CM Sindh that 250 children under the age of five die every year. They added that around 21,000 children are brought in hospitals every day, and 43 percent children belong to poor families and face different health issues.
CM Sindh said that he was worried about the health of children whether they belong to poor or well-off families.“It becomes the responsibility of the government to provide free of cost and non-stop health services to everyone,” he said.
The Childlife Foundation told the chief minister that by the end of April 2018 all the teaching government hospitals in Karachi would have full-fledged separate child health service facilities.
Similar facilities are being developed in Larkana Shaikh Zayed hospital, Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and in various other districts.
The chief minister said that the OPD for children is operated in government hospitals from 8 am to 2 pm and after that the children are checked in emergency.
“I want children OPD from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. and then ailing children could be taken to emergency,” he said.
He directed the health secretary that the shortage of doctors have been overcome to a considerable extent as new 6000 doctors have been appointed.
He instructed to prepare a plan for establishing a well-equipped children health facility in every DHQ and even taluka hospital where children OPD must be made non-stop from morning to 8 P.M.
He added that he would prefer to engage private sector so that service quality, management and non-stop OPD service could be ensured.
The chief minister also directed health department to prepare a software for keeping date, time and name-wise record of OPD, emergency and admitted patients with medicines prescribed, lab test and such facilities.
He said that this would help assess health issues and services in Sindh, apart from misuse/under use of labs and medicines. He said that he would personally focus children health services by reviewing meetings timely.
