‘Army of doctors working in flood-hit areas but lot more resources needed’

ISLAMABAD: Despite ‘an army of doctors’ sent by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) to the flood-affected areas of Sindh and Balochistan to avert a medical crisis, a lot more medical and financial resources are required. The biggest challenge in those areas is to provide healthcare facilities to pregnant women and saving malnourished children from falling sick due to infectious diseases, leading health experts said on Tuesday.

“As people have started forgetting about the flood affected, Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) has sent an army of doctors to prevent deaths due to disease outbreaks in the flood-hit areas of the country. The biggest challenge is to provide healthcare facilities to thousands of pregnant women who are going to deliver babies in the next few weeks and save thousands of malnourished children from infectious diseases,” Prof. Dr. Iqbal Khan, Vice Chancellor Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Islamabad, told a news conference here at a local hotel.

Accompanied by PIMA Central President Prof. Khubaib Shahid, Dr. Muhammad Tahir, Dr. Iftikhar Burney, Prof. Dr. Musa Nooruddin from Malaysia and others, STMU Vice Chancellor maintained that medical scholars from the entire Islamic world as well as Europe, North America and other continents of the world would discuss the largest medical challenge being faced by Pakistan in the form of flood-affected people at the central convention of PIMA being held on October 29-30, 2022 in Islamabad.

“Over 3,000 medical scholars and physicians from entire Pakistan as well as 200 leading health experts are going to attend the PIMA convention and to discuss important health issues facing the entire Islamic world,” Prof. Iqbal Khan said and hoped that their convention would provide new guidelines and recommendations to end disease and sufferings of ailing humanity.

“This year, PIMA will hold this convention at Jinnah Convention Centre, Islamabad, on 29-30 October 2022, in conjunction with the Federation of Islamic Medical Associations (FIMA), which is an umbrella organization of over 45 countries,” Central President PIMA Prof. Khubaib Shahid said adding that international experts from different fields of healthcare sector are expected to attend this convention, to meet and deliberate on burning issues related to healthcare, particularly in the Muslim world.

The convention will be attended by the heads of several respectable academic medical centers, deans and vice chancellors of universities, from all the country as well as from overseas.“This will be the largest ever gathering of healthcare professionals from all over Pakistan and overseas. The diseases in flood-hit areas are an ongoing challenge for the medical community and the government. The national and international medical fraternity will focus on post flood healthcare issues in Pakistan,” PIMA Central President said adding that they were expecting a large number of doctors from all over Pakistan to attend the largest ever gathering of healthcare professionals.