CM orders plan for 12-hour OPDs for kids at public hospitals

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the health department to work out a plan to start non-stop paediatric out-patient departments (OPDs) at all government-run hospitals from 8am to 8pm.

Out-patient departments work in the first half of the day at government hospitals in the province. In ideal conditions, doctors see patients from 9am to 1pm, but they usually arrive late and leave early, spending only two to three hours for two to three days a week.

Chief Minister Shah issued these directives while presiding over a meeting with health department officials and the ChildLife Foundation on Thursday, during which he was given a presentation on child health issues in Sindh.

The foundation told the chief minister that 250 of every 100,000 children under the age of five died every year in the province. They added that around 21,000 children were brought to hospitals every day and 43 per cent of them belonged to poor families; therefore, they faced different health issues.

On this, the chief minister said that he was worried about the health of children whether they belonged to poor or wealthy families. “It becomes the responsibility of the government to provide, free of cost and non-stop health services to everyone.”

The Childlife Foundation told the chief minister that by the end of April 2018, all the teaching government hospitals in Karachi would have full-fledged separate child healthcare facilities, and similar facilities were being developed at Larkana Shaikh Zaid Hospital, Jamshoro, as well as at hospitals in Shaheed Benazirabad and various other districts.

Shah said that the OPD for children was operated in government hospitals from 8am to 2pm and after that the children were brought to the emergency department. ‘I want children OPDs from 8am to 8pm and, after those timings, sick children could be taken to emergency departments,” he added.

He said there was no dearth of doctors as 6,000 doctors had been appointed by the provincial government, and they should be used to provide round-the-clock health facilities to the masses.

“Kindly prepare a plan for establishing a well-equipped children health facility in every DHQ and even at taluka hospitals where children OPD must be run non-stop from morning till night,” he said while issuing directives to Health Secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho.

He added that he would prefer to engage the private sector so that service quality, management and non-stop OPD services could be ensured. The chief minister also directed the health department to prepare a software for keeping a date-wise, time-wise, name-wise record of OPDs, emergency and admitted patients with the medicines given to them. “This would help to assess the health issues and services in Sindh, apart from misuse/under use of labs and medicines.” He said he would personally focus on children health services by reviewing meetings from time to time and directed the health department to start 12-hour OPDs as early as possible.