Cleanliness campaign in hospitals to begin from first March

The Department of Social Welfare and Women Development, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in collaboration with the Provincial Health Department and Institute of Management Sciences (IMS) will launch a three month cleanliness and renovation campaign from March 01, 2011 in three major teaching hospitals of the provincial capital, which include Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex.
In the first phase of the campaign complete cleanliness and renovation of the children and gynae wards will be undertaken and certain recreational facilities like TV etc would be provided therein in order to make them attractive and comfortable for the children and female patients. Besides education and training of the concerned sanitation and paramedical staff as well as patients and their attendants to regularly keep their wards neat and clean and ensure safe and careful use of all facilities available in the hospitals.
A meeting held here on Saturday with the Provincial Minister for Social Welfare and Women Development, Sitara Ayaz in the chair decided this. The female MPA Yasmin Zia, Additional Secretary Social Welfare, Director Social Welfare, representatives of IMS and German Organisation GIZ and other concerned officers attended the meeting.
During the meeting the Provincial Minister while expressing deep concern over what she called overall pathetic condition of cleanliness and particularly the unhygienic environment of children and gynae wards and Labour Rooms of these hospitals and stressed the need to not only ensure cleaning of the facilities but also make them attractive and patients friendly on modern lines.
On a proposal presented by the Provincial Minister it was also decided that the social welfare and health department and IMS under a formal Memorandum of Understanding would participate in the campaign in a volunteer but responsible manner, while IMS would arrange to engage its over 300 student volunteers in the campaign.
The meeting also decided to form separate monitoring teams for each hospital comprising two female MPAs and representatives of the participating departments, and these teams will also undertake visits of their respective hospitals well before launching of the campaign to review the requirements and arrangements of the campaign.