Drug testing labs to be functional soon: CM 

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif approved the purchase of incinerators for 36 districts and said that effective measures were being taken for the infection control programme in hospitals and with the installation of incinerators hospital waste would be discarded in an effective manner and private hospitals would be made duty bound to dump their waste properly.

The chief minister on Tuesday presided over a meeting in which progress on the improvement of the healthcare system and provision of better medical facilities to the people was discussed. He said speedy measures are being taken to make functional drug testing labs in four big cities.

Addressing the meeting, the chief minister said speedy measures are being taken to provide better healthcare facilities to the people and we are all responsible for providing comfort to the distressed people. He said a comprehensive programme has been made to provide medicines to the patients at their homes and under the first phase of this programme, hepatitis patients will be provided medicines at their homes. He said measures should be reviewed to provide medicines to the heart patients at their houses and immediate measures should be taken in this regard. He said this programme is a great service to patients and it will also reduce rush in hospitals and this patient-friendly programme should be completed at fast track in the shortest possible time.

He said the Punjab government is establishing a modern warehouse to store medicines as per international standards and the cold chain management system is being introduced in this regard. He said samples of medicines will be tested from foreign labs and the government will take every possible measure to provide standardised medicines to the people. He said the government is providing standardised medicines to the people and is spending Rs6 billion annually to provide free-of-cost medicines to the people. He said the modern drug testing lab in Lahore is totally functional and paperless system is functioning there.