Health minister promises improvements at PIMS

Islamabad: All expensive diagnostic equipment rotting at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for want of repairs and replacement will be taken stock of, and allocated grants will be released to have the hospital’s central cooling system up and running, Minister for Health Aamir Mehmood Kiyani stated during a surprise visit to the capital’s largest public sector health facility here Tuesday.

The Minister visited the Emergency and Cardiac Care Centre, as well as the Children’s Hospital, where he presented Eid gifts to child patients while compassionately listening to the woes of attendants and patients alike. He was accompanied by the Executive Director of PIMS Dr. Raja Amjad Mehmood, who briefed him about the hospital’s functioning and performance.

A perturbed father whose critically ill child is under treatment at the Children’s Hospital, PIMS, complained of doctors’ inability to diagnose his only child’s medical predicament despite lapse of several days.

“The reason behind this is that the most complicated cases are referred to PIMS,” the executive director tried to justify in a bid to pacify the minister and the attendant. The child is said to have been referred to PIMS from CMH. The minister assured the father that the ED would specifically look into his case and ensure that proper investigations are carried out for the child’s recovery.

“Parents of children admitted in hospitals during Eid holidays are immensely distressed. We will accord special attention to maternal and child health in consonance with Prime Minister Imran Khan’s vision,” Kiyani stated on the occasion. He made a special mention of the KP Sehat Sahulat Card facility, and assured replication of the model at the national level so that poor and middle class families can be rescued from the economic impact of rising health costs. He lamented that past governments had not paid adequate attention to health and education.

“We will remove all obstacles impeding the provision of quality health care to the masses. Expensive machinery and allied resources will be provided to PIMS so that the hospital can better serve patients. However, PIMS will have to function within its resources,” Amir pointed out, promising a visible improvement in quality of care in government hospitals.

The Minister sought the cooperation of the judiciary and media in this context, and underlined the need for expansion of health facilities in Islamabad.