Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has time and again submitted a draft health policy to government to make sure provision of healthcare to masses besides addressing the problems of medical professionals.
"Lack of proper health policy has caused a lot of problems, corruption and malpractices to the people at the helm of affairs", said Dr Arshad Rana, President PMA Federal chapter here on Tuesday in an interview with Business Recorder.
"There is no career structure for doctors as the medical professionals are being given opportunities to update their skills," he said adding that PMA has raised the issue with the government to make classification of doctors and give them due status.
"PMA, a registered body of doctors of Pakistan, has been carrying out two-pronged activities ie doctors welfare and people welfare. Both the programmes are being given proper time and a strategy is being chalked out to make these programmes a success. PMA supports every right demand of the doctors and strives for their approval by the government", he said.
Dr Rana said that PMA is a non-political and non-profit organisation having various programmes for welfare of the people. All its costs are being borne by philanthropists and 1,400 members of the association, he said. "We have set up a modern kidney dialysis centre in PMA House to treat kidney patients. This centre needs operational expenses of Rs 1,100 to Rs 1,200 per patient, which would be borne by philanthropists", he said. He said that PMA was providing medical care to over 50 patients daily besides providing them medicines and other medical facilities, free of cost.
PMA Trust provides medicines of Rs 10,000 per month free of cost while all pathological tests are also done free, he added. He said that PMA is giving scholarship of Rs 1,500 per month to 5 poor students of Rawalpindi Medical College, besides 5 families are being provided token relief of Rs 2,500 per month.