‘Community medicine centresshould be established to decreaseburden on tertiary-care hospitals’

Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof Saeed Quraishy has said between 3,000 and 4,000 community medicine centres with all the comprehensive primary health facilities are required in the country to lower the burden on tertiary-care hospitals.

“Community medicine centres are the need of the hour in Pakistan,” he said after inaugurating the Ehad Medical Centre (EMC), a community medicine centre in Federal B Area on Saturday night.

The DUHS VC was of the view that such community medicine centres will not only reduce burden on the tertiary-care hospitals but also be helpful in decreasing the number of deaths and cases of disabilities due to preventable diseases.

It was told on the occasion that the DUHS would provide diagnostic services at the EMC, which was a new chain of community medicine centres established under public-private partnership where top of the line health consultants would be available and patients would also be able to consult international experts in the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey and anywhere in the world through telemedicine.

Organisers plan to establish 10 such centres in Karachi within a year and 100 throughout the country in the next three to five years where patients would be able to seek advice from doctors while sitting at their homes while medicines would be delivered to their doorsteps.

Prof Quraishy said the DUHS had also established two such community centres in low-income group areas of Karachi but they lacked such comprehensive primary health care facilities like the EMC. The VC hoped that with the help of the private sector and philanthropists, more such community centres could be established in different areas to benefit the people.

Prof Abdul Basit, the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region president of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), who would be heading the clinical side of the EMC chain, deplored the fact that the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation and other health facilities were overburdened with patients whose diseases were preventable.

He said at present patients had no other option than to approach the tertiary-care hospitals to seek advanced medical assistance and treatment on state’s expenses.

“Thousands of heart attacks, kidney failures, amputations of lower limbs and blindness can be prevented if people are provided comprehensive primary health care facilities and services closer to their homes. These are preventable diseases and can easily be prevented by setting up primary health care facilities like Ehad Medical Center throughout the country”, Prof Basit said, adding that such centres would also result in improved healthcare services at the tertiary-care facilities.

The diabetologist maintained that standardised health care at the primary centres could not only lower the incidence of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, kidney failures and blindness but also reduce the disease burden on the country’s fragile health system.

EMC Project Director Syed Jamshaid Ahmed said they had made a pledge to set up facilities where four health services including diagnostic services, consultation clinics, pharmacy and telemedicine facilities would be provided to people at the same place.

Renowned comedian and actor Ayaz Khan, actor and director Anwar Iqbal, Haroon Qasim, Syed Yasir Ali Hashmi and others also spoke on the occasion.