Interest-free loans for doctors

LAHORE: A meeting of Board of Directors of Punjab Health Foundation was held on Tuesday which was headed by Special Secretary Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Saqib Mannan in the committee room of the department.

According to a handout issued here, the board of directors gave approval of the minutes of Finance and Technical Committee meeting. The BoD reviewed the loan applications furnished by the Homoeopaths, Hakeems, LHVs and other categories of health professionals.

The board directed the PHF that scope of work of these categories should be obtained from Punjab Healthcare Commission and minimum service delivery standard also be discussed with Punjab Healthcare Commission before taking any action on these loan applications.

The agenda items regarding the regularisation of daily wages employees of PHF was also discussed and it was decided that a scrutiny committee consisting representatives of Specialized Healthcare Department, Punjab Regulation Department and Punjab Health Foundation to be constituted to evaluate the cases of daily wages employees individually and present its recommendations on the issue. For this purpose TORs of the scrutiny committee would also be set up.

The board of directors approved a scheme through which Punjab Health Foundation would offer interest-free loans of Rs 2500,000 to doctors of Specialized and Primary & Secondary Healthcare for their capacity building and training short courses up to three to 18 months within the country.

The Board of Directors directed the MD of PHF to prepare TORs for this scheme. Secretary Services S&GAD Farhan Aziz Khawaja attended the meeting. Members of board of directors Prof Eice Muhammad, Dr Amjad Saqib, MD PHF Ajmal Bhatti, Chief Health P&D Salim Masih, DMD PHF and representatives of other departments concerned were present.

uplift schemes: The Punjab government Tuesday approved four development schemes of different sectors at an estimated cost of Rs5.974 billion.

These schemes were approved in the 66th meeting of Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) of current fiscal year 2017-18 presided over by P&D Chairman Muhammad Jahanzeb Khan.

All members of the Planning & Development Board, provincial secretaries concerned, Assistant Chief P&D Coordination-II Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal and other senior representatives of the relevant provincial departments also attended the meeting.

The approved development schemes included: Construction of Road (Dual Carriageway) from Civil Hospital to Dera Bakha, Bahawalpur Phase-I, Bahawalpur at the cost of Rs770.441 million, E-Procurement (Feasibility) (PC-II) at the cost of Rs22.994 million, rehabilitation of salt affected soils through gypsum application at the cost of Rs1.891 billion and establishment of University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at Bahawalpur (Revised) at the cost of Rs3.290 billion.