Murad urges health dept. to plan non-stop children OPDs

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the Sindh Health Department to work out a plan to start non-stop paediatric OPDs in all government hospitals from 8 am to 8pm.

He issued these directives while chairing a meeting in which ChildLife Foundation, a government partner, gave him a presentation on child health in Sindh, said a statement on Thursday.

The foundation told the CM Sindh that 250 children under the age of five die every year while around 21,000 children are brought to hospitals every day and 43 per cent children belong to poor families that is why they face different health issues.

The CM Sindh said that he was worried about the health of children whether they belong to poor or well-oof families. It becomes the responsibility of the government to provide free of cost and non-stop health services to everyone.

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, Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and in various other districts.

The CM Sindh said that the OPDs for children are operated in government hospitals from 8a.m. to 2p.m.

"I want children OPDs from 8a.m. to 8p.m. and then ailing children could be taken to emergency," he said.

He directed the Health Secretary that new 6000 doctors have been appointed and the shortage of doctors have been overcome to a considerable extent.

He asked to prepare a plan for establishing a well-equipped children health facility in every DHQ and even in taluka hospital where children OPDs must be made non-stop from morning to 8p.m., he said.

Adding that he would prefer to engage private sector so that service quality, management and non-stop OPD services could be ensured.

The CM Sindh directed the health department to prepare a software for keeping date-wise, time-wise, name-wise record of OPDs, emergency and admitted patients with the medicines given to him/her, laboratory tests and such facilities.

This would help to assess the health issues and services in Sindh apart from miuse/under use of laboratories and medicines, he said.

The CM Sindh said that he would personally focus on children health services by reviewing meetings time to time.