Punjab Labour Minister Haji Ehsaan-ud-Din Qureshi has said that government is giving top priority to the provision of state of the art healthcare facilities to the labourers. He said that a poorly controlled hypertension can end up with a dreaded complication of cardiovascular accidents, in fact, every system of the body could be involved.
The main objective of the labour department is to provide free of cost comprehensive healthcare facilities to the workers and their family members, it includes, bone marrow transplant facility, cochlear implant facility to the deaf and dumb children of secured workers, facility of abroad treatment, CT Scan 64 slices, Hepatitis B & C Clinics etc, he added.
While talking to delegations of doctor's community here on Wednesday, Haji Ehsaan-ud-Din Qureshi said that to handle such an enormous problem in a third world country with limited financial resources is not possible without the co-operation of philanthropists. He asked to launch an awareness campaign about the fatal aspects of hypertension and a joint effort is required in which the government, physicians, NGOs, media and general public should play their part. Our system cannot alone take this pressure to care for the need of chronic complications of diabetes like dialysis, heart surgery, laser treatment of eye and renal transplantation, however, the best strategy for us would be to concentrate on planning for prevention and early treatment of the disease, he maintained.
He said that responding to different challenges faced in the delivery of healthcare in the province, the Punjab government has introduced many reforms in health sector through regeneration of existing resources and budget allocation for health and other social sectors have been increased significantly. He said in Pakistan itself, more than 40 percent of the adult population over the age of 45 suffers from one form or the other of non-communicable disease, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and even cancer and the trend seems to be on the rise. This increasing trend is likely to double the burden of disease in countries such as ours and clearly, is likely to have significant health economic implications as a result of cost of care and lost productivity costs, he added.
He said that, in past, medical facilities were available to influential; however, the present government has ensured modern health care facilities and free medicines to poor and resource less people. He said that the budget for healthcare facilities has been increased four times during present government, which has enhanced from Rs 11 billion to Rs 46 billion. Air-conditioners / generators were installed in general wards at a cost of Rs 2 billion for creating patient-friendly atmosphere in the public sector hospitals, besides, in emergency, provision of free medicines were ensured for indoor patients and Rs 6 billion had been allocated in the current budget, he added.