Punjab government has given highest priority to health and education; the provincial health budget has been enhanced by 50 percent and additional resources have been provided to accelerate the efforts for prompt achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Whereas, the major focus on Protecting the Health of people through strengthening of Primary Health Care and Disease Preventive Programmes. Punjab Health Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal said this while inaugurating the "WHO Inter-country Training Workshop on Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases and Monitoring and Evaluation of National Immunisation Programmes" here on Monday.
The meeting was attended by WHO Country Representative Dr Rehana, Secretary Health Rais Abbas Zaidi, WHO Operation Officer Punjab Ismatullah Chaudhry, Dr Azhar Masood Bhatti, DG Health Dr Aslam, Director EPI Dr Afzal Shaheen, WHO EPI Incharge Dr Ahmad Darwish, Dr Waseem Sajjad Agha (Afghanistan) and delegations of participating countries were present on the occasion beside others.
Chaudhry Iqbal maintained that provincial epidemic control cell has been created in DG Health Office Punjab and District Epidemic Control Committees are functioning in each district under District Coordination Officer. "Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) aims at reducing morbidity, disabilities and mortality caused by seven vaccine preventable diseases namely childhood Tuberculosis, Poliomyelitis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Measles, Neonatal tetanus and Hepatitis-B by vaccinating all children below one year of age, in addition, all pregnant women are vaccinated against tetanus. The priority targets of the programme are polio eradication followed by elimination of Neonatal Tetanus and Measles.
The health department is successfully running EPI and GAVI programmes to save the children from preventable diseases and last year EPI coverage remained 81 percent in the province," he added.
According to him, the government, through its Health Sector Reforms Programme, has completed all deficiencies in health manpower and has strengthened technical force of health services. The government has provided special pay package to doctors and paramedical, with series of incentives, which has improved the performance dramatically, he added. This has helped the health department to overcome non-availability of doctors and to solve the problems of absentees. More than 85 percent of Basic Health Units have now become functional, while a year ago it was less than 40 percent. EPI coverage have risen to more than 81 percent in province, while it is more than 90 percent in about 10 district. This has helped us to attain zero Polio level in our province, from July last year onwards.
"The government has initiated a big MNCH programme, exclusively for improving the health of women and children as well as to reduce infant and maternal mortality before the target year of 2015. Rural Health Centers has been provided two Lady Health Visitors and six nurses to make the emergency, labour room and operation theater functional round the clock. The linkage and referral system from community health house to basic health unit and rural health center, then from primary health care facility to secondary and tertiary hospitals have been improved, through equipping them with more specialists, replenishment of equipment and repair of residences," he maintained.