Stakeholders on board: policy guidelines to protect healthcare workers discussed

Violence against health workers discussed at a seminar held under the aegis of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at Jinnah Sindh Medical University, here on Monday.
The APPNA Institute of Public Health (AIPH), JSMU, is a 'proud' partner of the Health Care in Danger (HCiD) Initiative of the ICRC. Those who attended seminar included: Secretary Health Dr Usman Chachar, Vice Chancellor Jinnah Sindh Medical University Dr SM Tariq Rafi, Dean Medical Education CPSP Dr Syeda Kausar, ICRC sub-delegation head Giovanni Trambaiolo, ICRC HCiD Project head Dr Mirwais Khan, AIG Dr Waliullah, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Ali Shalwani, Dean and Pro VC JSMU Professor Lubna Baig, HCiD Co-Principle Investigator Dr Shiraz Shaikh, Project Manager Dr Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Hashmi, Dr Naseem from Institute of Public Health and Social Sciences Khyber Medical University, CEO Sindh Healthcare Commission Dr Minhaj Kidwai and Media Panelist Zarrar Khuhro and many healthcare professionals.
Purpose of the seminar was to develop policy guidelines for protecting healthcare providers taking onboard the concerned stakeholders, including health policy makers, media personnel, members of medical fraternity and law enforcement agencies in protecting health care.
"By adopting new policies and standards, all hospitals, no matter how big or small, can prevent violence and keep their staff and patients safe," Dr Mirwais said.
He emphasised that since healthcare workers care for us they deserve to feel them safe at work. He said seminar was aimed at sending a strong message that violence against healthcare workers can never be condoned.
Professor Lubna Baig, Dean APPNA Institute of Public Health (JSMU) said that the HCID Project team at the AIPH feels strongly about violence against healthcare workers that negatively affect their which ultimately leads to poor quality of care and adverse health outcomes. She said that in the past four years, the team has passionately done great amount of research on this subject and also come up with practical solutions to minimize violence of said nature.
"Presence of all relevant stakeholders in this seminar will help us chalk out a strategy to implement the solutions that have been developed after hard work of the core team of the project," she said.
The HCiD initiative is aimed at conscientiously supporting health systems by preventing and controlling violence against healthcare workers at their workplace. The initiative has developed and implemented different interventions, including training for health care providers on de-escalation of violence in healthcare surroundings, training for ambulance workers on field safety and security, testing contextualized international tools to assess security in hospitals and formation of security frameworks and mass media awareness campaigns on giving way to ambulances and respecting health care providers.