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Govt working to provide healthcare at grassroots: PM

* PPHI to establish mother, childcare centres that will have female doctors and midwives available round-the-clock

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: The government is working on a fast track basis to ensure the provision of basic healthcare facilities to the people at their doorstep and would provide all necessary resources for the purpose, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Friday.

The prime minister was chairing a meeting at the PM House on the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI).

The meeting was given a detailed presentation on the progress of PPHI in each province, Gilgit-Baltistan and FATA.

The meeting was informed that the PPHI project, over a period of 10 years, had successfully evolved into a new model of healthcare management, through which basic issues regarding the availability of doctors, procurement and distribution of medicines had been resolved.

A team of dedicated personnel had been constituted and ownership had been created at both provincial and district levels, the meeting was told.

Jahangir Tareen, chairman of the steering committee of PPHI, laid out the future roadmap of PPHI, under which a chain of mother and childcare centres would be established in every province and would have lady doctors/midwives available around-the-clock. The centres would also be equipped with ultrasound, x-ray, pathological and ambulance facilities.

Tareen further informed that PPHI had also planned to use regional health centres as first referral facility to basic health units (BHUs), creating labour rooms in every BHU and setting up pathology labs in every BHU cluster.

He informed the prime minister that the number of health facilities with PPHI had grown from 2,591 to 3,093, while the number of BHUs had increased to 2,390.

The meeting was also informed about the current needs of PPHI, both in terms of budget as well as manpower.

Gilani was also given progress report on PPHI operations in model districts approved by the prime minister in May 2008. These included Multan, Larkana, Nowshera, Khyber Agency, Pishin and Diamer.

Funds had also been allocated for the project in 2009-10 budget and all model districts would be operational by December 31, 2009, Tareen said. In order to make the functioning of the steering committee more effective, the prime minister reconstituted the committee to take all stakeholders on board.

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