Shahbaz meets England’s public health chief

LAHORE: Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif met with head of Public Health England Duncan Selbie in London.
According to a handout Thursday, the chief minister during the meeting said vaccination of new-born babies has increased 20 percent in Punjab. He said the aim of health reforms in Punjab is to provide healthcare facilities to every citizen. He said 200 monitoring assistants have been deputed for collecting data about health facilities in the province. Moreover, smartphones have been provided to 4,000 vaccinators for providing monitoring report of their performance, he added.
Shahbaz said 700 basic health units have been converted into mother and child health centres for decreasing the death rate of women during birth of child and these centres work round-the- clock.
He said for the first time in Pakistan, serious efforts are being made for controlling population rate and it has been decided to impart five weeks training to 48,000 health workers. Duncan Selbie said it is unbelievable and surprising that information technology is being used successfully for monitoring the performance of health sector in Punjab. He said this system is worth emulating for other under developed countries.