Health Secretary Chairs Meeting, Discusses Healthcare Facilities In Province

Secretary Primary & Secondary Health Punjab Ali Bahadur Qazi directed the department to take concrete steps for prevention and control of diseases like dengue and polio.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Jun, 2018 ) :Secretary Primary & Secondary Health Punjab Ali Bahadur Qazi directed the department to take concrete steps for prevention and control of diseases like dengue and polio.

He was chairing the first formal departmental briefing session after assuming his charge as secretary Primary & Secondary Health, here on Saturday.

He said that provision of timely healthcare facilities to the flood affectees during the upcoming season should be ensured.

Ali Bahadur said that anti-polio activities should also be enhanced for ensuring effective control on the situation. He said that Primary & Secondary Health Department was directly related to healthcare delivery services to people.

Besides Special Secretary Dr Faisal Zahoor, Director General Health Services Dr Munir Ahmed, Director Headquarters Dr Haroon Jehangir Khan, Additional Secretary Technical Dr Asim Altaf, senior officers of the department and directors of different health programms also attended the meeting.

DG Health Dr Munir Ahmed briefed the secretary. He said that health delivery at primary & secondary level had been improved significantly for which DHQ and THQ hospitals had been strengthened besides improving the working of basic health units.

He disclosed that after February 2017, no polio case had been reported in the province and due to the affective measures taken by the department. Routine immunization coverage has reached up to 86 per cent, which was previously 50 per cent.

Dr Munir said that E-Vaccs system had been introduced for monitoring activities of vaccinatiors and due to which the attendance of vaccinators had reached up to 97 per cent. He said that Punjab is the first province which initially introduced Rota virus in six districts to prevent children from watery diarrhea and now the scope of the vaccine had been expanded to all districts.

The meeting was informed that arrangements were being finalized for protection and provision of health cover to the flood affectees during the upcoming monsoon season. All necessary measures were being taken according to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) and the sites for setting up medical relief camps in the traditionally flood affected districts have also been marked.

Moreover, 80,000 dozes of anti-snake venom (ASV) and 75,000 anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) are available in the stock whereas one million aqua-pura tablets for filtering drinking water have been procured, which would be distributed in the flood affected areas. Besides this, five lakh packets of ORS have already been supplied to the districts whereas buffer stock of five lakh ORS is also available in the department.

Dr Munir Ahmed said that EPI programme is very successfully being run in the province. He disclosed that every year one million newborn babies are included in the system.

While addressing the meeting, Secretary Ali Bahadur Qazi appreciated that newly established Primary & Secondary Health Department has achieved a number of targets and remained successful in providing health facilities at primary and secondary levels.

He said that all procurements should timely be done to avoid any difficulty. He said that due to general election activities, the issues related to public health should not be ignored and special focus be given to provision of medicalcover to the flood affectees and to control dengue in the coming season.