Saira opens BMT Centre

Islamabad :Minister for Health Saira Afzal visited the Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital on Wednesday to inquire after the health of patients receiving free treatment under the Prime Minister’s National Health Programme (PMNHP). Akbar Niazi Hospital is an empanelled hospital of PMNHP.

Saira also inaugurated the Bone Marrow Transplant Centre (BMT) at the Islamabad Medical and Dental College—a collaborative venture with Cure to Children Foundation, Italy. “The government is according to most priority to health sector by introducing policies and initiatives to improve access to health services and infrastructure,” she stated on the occasion.

Saira said, healthcare facilities in Pakistan are inadequate and available facilities are over-burdened. The remote areas particularly have poor access to facilities. Persistently low population to hospital bed ratio s also a challenge. One of the major issues is that most of the hospitals are concentrated in large cosmopolitans, whereas the population is rapidly growing, she pointed out, hoping that IMDC and Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital will play a major role in public healthcare, and specially cater to the medical needs of the people of Bhara Kahu, Murree and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

Saira said, there are only a few BMT centres in Pakistan and these are insufficient to meet the country’s needs. “The best strategy is to scale up efforts for the prevention of Thalassemia Major. This can be done by raising public awareness of the disease, early detection of thalassemia carriers especially in Thalassaemic families, genetic counselling of carriers, and pre-natal diagnosis of thalassemia major,” she concluded.