PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Health Dr Hasham Inamullah Khan has said that a comprehensive health policy is underway for the provision of better health facilities to the masses at primary and secondary level whereas the influx of patients on tertiary health institutes can be reduced and maximum health facilities would be shifted to rural and far-flung areas.
He was addressing a workshop on stakeholders’ consultation on draft provincial health policy here.
The minister said a comprehensive and detailed policy has been planned and implementation strategy was being evolved, aiming to provide better healthcare at the grassroots level.
Dr Hasham told the workshop that he studied the whole Health Department issues thoroughly, identified various problems and hurdles that hampered the public from getting health facilities.
He said for solving all such issues, the health policy advisory council had evolved new health policy wherein experts from 27 national and international organizations were engaged.
An implementable policy and implementation strategy would soon be completed and the same would be fully implemented that would visualize the real change in the health sector, said the minister.
He informed the gathering that a human resource cell was being established at the Health Department wherein the province wise available data, expertise and its multiple implementations would be available which would help overcome the human resource shortfall in the department.
The KP Health Department had organized the consultative workshop to formulate its provincial health policy.
The activity was arranged in consultation to the first meeting of the health policy advisory council (HPAC) that was held last week.
The participants belonged to different sectors of the Health Department, Planning and Development Department, Population Welfare Department, Local Government and Rural Development Department, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, Health Care Commission and Agha Khan Health Services.
The purpose was to get inputs from the stakeholders belonging to various sectors based on key issues and challenges and compiling their guidance/suggestions.
