Ziauddin University is a national institution of international standards serving the country with dedication and devotion. I appreciate its work and efforts of its administration for arranging such an informative event. I congratulate the management of Ziauddin University for hosting this useful conference. Dr Shabbir Ahmed Lehri, President Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) said this while addressing the inaugural session of the three-day international conference on "Bridging the gap in primary healthcare innovations, translations beyond."
He stated that the technology is changing on a greater pace than ever especially in medical technology due to proliferation of issues in everyday life. Talking about his department Dr Lehri said; when I took over the charge of President PMDC there were twenty thousand pending registrations, we have issued all of them. There were three types of curriculum in the country. Our curriculum committee has been working day and night and I hope they will chalk out a single curriculum.
He further stated that ninety percent of private medical organisations are working in the country in a good way but other ten percent are just minting money. We have started a drive to crackdown on such fake institutions and their owners. We saw there are owners of ghee mill, textile mill and sugar mills who without due qualifications operating medical colleges just for the sake of money minting. We are taking stern actions against them who have made the medical education a business and playing with our future generations.
Dr Lehri said that PMDC is to facilitate anyone who is going to operate on merit basis; we have to resolve your problems and issues and facilitate the doctors' community. My doors are open for each and every person who wishes to resolve the issues and deal with problems faced by medical education. We are deadly against corruption and maladministration.
Dr Maud Nauta from Camden Health Improvement Practice, London, UK in her address on "How and why we make mistakes, Lessons learnt from the West" talked about human factors in primary healthcare. She shared examples of human factors like work load/under load, lack of knowledge, pattern recognition, over confidence and said 100,000 people die in hospitals alone due to human error. She pointed out that first we have to find out our errors and then we would be able to solve them.
Maud Nauta further stated that all healthcare professionals strive for improvement in patient care but at least 10% of patients admitted to hospitals will encounter a potentially fatal medical error and 50% of these are preventable. Human factors or non-technical skills contribute to at least 70% of these errors.
"Harnessing the energy of health care workforce to benefit the community" was the subject discussed by Professor Dr Ghaffar Billo, Senior Professor of Pediatrics, Aga Khan University Hospital & Founder of HANDS. He elaborated the functions of his NGO and talked about community empowerment.
Earlier, Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, Vice Chancellor, Ziauddin University in his welcome address stated that Ziauddin University is a renowned institution for learning in Pakistan. Sir Dr Ziauddin Ahmed was a great educationist and mathematician who contributed with Sir Syed Ahmed Khan at Aligarh. His daughter Dr Ejaz Fatima has established this institution. Pirzada said this is not the time of isolation, he requested and invited the people from different parts of world to come forward and contribute in this field. The conference was attended by a large number of doctors, professors, educationists and medical students.