Punjab Minister for Specialized Healthcare Khwaja Salman Rafiq and Minister for Primary and Secondary Health Khwaja Imran Nazir have said that new financial year will be the year of improvement and development for health sector. They said that in the next financial year, additional 55 billion rupees would be spent on health sector. Both the ministers said that in 2017-18 budget, Rs 263 billion have been allocated for Specialized Healthcare and Primary and Secondary Health which is a record.
Commenting on next year's budget, they were of the view that government is paying more attention to Primary and Secondary Health and prevention of disease programme so that the disease burden could be reduced and health facilities be made available at local level that would be helpful for reducing patient load in the tertiary care hospitals.
They said that next year all the THQ hospitals would be modernized and one hundred mobile health units would also procured for easy access of people to the health facilities at their doorstep. They said that Rs 25 billion would be spent on Health Development Schemes of Specialized Healthcare and 16 billion rupees would be spent on provision of free medicines to the people. They said that these initiatives reflect the poor friendly policies of Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.
They said that availability of ventilators is a serious issue and the government has allocated Rs 400 million for the procurement of new ventilators to overcome this issue. Moreover, 700 million rupees would be spent on dialysis facilities for Kidney patients. Besides, 3.5 billion rupees have been earmarked for the provision of free medicines to hepatitis C patients.
Khwaja Imran Nazir, in his comments said that 20 billion rupees would be spent on construction and repair and maintenance of DHQ and THQ hospitals and 20 new CT scan machines would also be provided to DHQ hospitals. Imran Nazir further said that CT scan machines and diagnostic services would be run through public and private partnership. He said that one billion rupees have been allocated for the improvement of mother and child health facilities in 11 districts of south Punjab. Minister Primary and Secondary Health said that first time government has allocated huge funds for provision of free medicines. He said that 10 billion rupees have been allocated for the provision of free medicines in Primary and Secondary Healthcare Hospitals which is a record. The health ministers were of the view that allocation for health sector development for the next fiscal year reflects the patient friendly policies of the government. They hoped that the new financial year would be a year of development for the health sector and health sector would flourish more in coming days.