Sindh to have own medical, dental council: Pechuho

KARACHI: Hinting at establishing Sindh’s own medical and dental council, Sindh Health Minister Dr. Azra Pechuho Monday said nobody knows whether the current Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) would exist after four years or not with a new government in the Centre.

“We are going to establish the Sindh Medical and Dental Council (SMDC) through legislation in the provincial assembly after Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) turned down our request to lower the MDCAT merit for students of Sindh for admissions to provincial medical and dental colleges,” Dr. Azra Pechuho told a news conference at the Sindh Assembly building on Monday.

Accompanied by Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani and Secretary Health Syed Zulfiqar Shah, Dr Azra Pechuho highlighted the provincial health department’s achievements in the healthcare service delivery and future plans to facilitate the people in getting quality healthcare facilities in the province. Responding to a query regarding the PMC's stance that it would not register students who would not fulfill the PMC admission criteria, she maintained that who knows whether the PMC would exist or not when these students would complete their medicine and dental education in four years’ time. “Do they (PMC) know whether they would exist when the next government comes. This government got the PMC bill approved from the joint session of Parliament although this bill was rejected by the National Assembly and the Senate separately,” she said and added that as per the 18th Amendment, higher and medical education was the domain of the provincial government.

When asked about health insurance provided by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and federal governments, she said the Sindh government was spending Rs57 billion for provision of free of charge health facilities on healthcare facilities, foundations and charity hospitals to facilitate citizens in need of quality healthcare. “The health insurance of the other provinces and the federal government only covers in-patient treatment while OPD costs are not covered through this scheme. The in-patient treatment through health insurance scheme is provided through private hospitals, which is a vicious circle and not a sustainable model," she claimed. “In comparison to that, we are providing Rs57 billion annually to healthcare facilities offering both OPD and in-patient treatment facilities free of charge to millions of people. Our health facilities are performing specialized procedures like liver transplants, renal transplants and bone marrow transplants and radiological treatments like Gamma knife and Cyber knife treatments to patients without any charge”, Dr. Azra Pechuho maintained. This amount has been distributed as grants to allow institutes such as NICVD to function and develop new innovations.

Highlighting the plans in the healthcare sector, she said they were going to establish two Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) labs, one at Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Ojha Campus and other at Jamshoro’s health facility, which would be used for research and diagnosis of viral, bacterial and other infectious diseases. She maintained that they were going to take over Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) run health facilities and run them under public private partnership, adding that famous Sobhraj Maternity Hospital was being handed over to a famous organization in the gynae and obstetrics area.

“We are also going to establish a bioequivalence center at the Dow University Ojha campus, to help in increasing exports of medicines to other countries. A Center for Disease Control is also being established at the DUHS Ojha Campus,” she announced and added that Gamma knife facility was also being provided at DUHS Ojha Campus to cancer patients.

Conceding their failure to establish 48 trauma centers at Taluqa and District Hospitals functional in Sindh due to lack of trained manpower, she said they were planning to link them with the main Trauma Center in Karachi and added they would also establish vascular surgery department at the SMBB Trauma Center in Karachi.

She maintained that there are currently 96 schemes underway in the health sector Annual Development Programme, with 48 new schemes while 38 schemes had been completed. “Telehealth and telemedicine is another area where work is being done to ensure a standard of care is maintained, regardless of how remote the area. Nurses are also being trained for the same aim," she added.