Meeting Reviews Referral System Of Public Hospitals

A top-level meeting of both wings of Health Department Tuesday discussed various options for strengthening of 'Referral system' of public sector hospitals.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Dec, 2018 ) :A top-level meeting of both wings of Health Department Tuesday discussed various options for strengthening of 'Referral system' of public sector hospitals.

Secretary Specialised Healthcare and Medical education (SH&ME) Saqib Zaffer and Secretary Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SH) Zahid Akhtar Zaman co-chaired the meeting.

It was suggested that to reduce pressure on tertiary hospitals, senior professors and consultants should visit in rotation the nearby districts.

Vice Chancellor University of Health Sciences Professor Javed Akram briefed the meeting about improvement in referral system.

Secretary SH&ME expressed his concerns on growing trend of referring patients to tertiary hospitals without solid reasons. "Referral system of district and tehsil hospitals must be improved. Tertiary hospitals always deal with cases in emergency department but referral of outdoor patients should be filtered properly," he said.

Secretary P&SH agreed that without concrete reasons no patient should be referred to teaching hospitals. "Coordinated strategy for strengthening of primary and secondary health facilities being adopted to prevent patients to visit tertiary hospitals," said Secretary P&SH.

Zahid Akhtar further said that they were fully aware of work pressure on teaching hospitals, adding that there must be proper filtration at primary and secondary hospitals.

"Confidence of public on government health centres increased manifold prompting pressure on health centers. Also growing population was another factor" he noted.

During the meeting a special committee was also constituted which would prepare recommendation for improvement in referralsystem.