Karachi, 21 October 2018: Vice chancellor Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) Prof. Saeed Quraishy has said that Sindh lags behind Punjab in health infrastructure and provision of health services to its people and called upon the private sector to join hands with the government to alleviate the miseries of people.
“Sindh is lagging behind Punjab in the health sector as we have the chronic issues like unavailability of medicines to the patients, poor sanitary conditions at our public hospitals as well as absence of required number of qualitied doctors for our people”, he said while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a medical conference on Saturday.
The two-day medical conference titled “Karachi Con 18”, has been organized by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) here at a local hotel and its is being attending by national and international health experts, researchers, doctors, medical students and educationists.
On the occasion, 15 public and private health organizations and NGOs were given Excellence Awards in Health Services including Hands, Al-khidmat, BIDE, NIBD, PWA, POB, HOPES, SINA Health, Child Life, Omair Sana Foundation, Blood Banking, Child Aid Foundation, Bait us Sakoon, Cyber Knife at JPMC and Endoscopic Suit (Surgical Unit IV CHK).
Prof. Saeed Quraishy said private sector should come forward and join hands with the government, especially in the area of primary health where government alone could not alleviate the sufferings of the people and urged the private health sector to support the authorities and health department in improving health facilities in district Tharparkar.
“Condition of health services in various Talukas in Tharparkar is not satisfactory and without private health sector’s help, no relief can be provided to people of Thar by the government alone”, he said and added that government had asked the public health Universities to establish medical camps to save lives of dying children in Tharparkar.
“We are going to establish medical camps in various Talukas in the Tharparkar in coming days but this is a short-term solution. Sustained efforts are required to improve health status of Tharparkar by providing employment facilities to people of arid Zone”, he added.
Deploring that Pakistan still has the third highest rate of infant mortality in the world while diseases like Malaria, TB were endemic in the province of Sindh, he hoped that PIMA’s Karachi Con 18 would prove to be a milestone in addressing health issues and finding solutions to their problems.
He also spoke of deaths of motorcyclists in accidents and growing cases of trauma as motorcyclists do not wear helmets while riding motorbikes and hoped that social issues facing the society would also come under discussion at the medical conference.
Eminent researcher, dermatologist and former PIMA president Prof. Hafeez ur Rehman spoke on the importance of education and claimed that the oldest existing University of the world was established by a Mulsim woman in Morocco at a time when women were not allowed to acquire education in the Europe or any other part of the world.
“But unfortunately, at this moment Islamic world is considered as anti-women-education and none of its varsities is among top 100 varsities of the world. We should follow the Quranic teachings regarding education, knowledge and research which asks people for 756 times to do research and seek knowledge”, he added.
PIMA Karachi President and Secretary of the Karachi Con 18 Prof. Atif Hafeez warned that Pakistan was going to face the serious shortage of trained and qualified doctors as majority of male doctors were leaving the country due to a variety of reasons while most of the female doctors do not practice medicine in Pakistan after getting married.
“Only 20 percent of the all doctors produced in Pakistan are males but of them, 60 to 70 percent of the male doctors leave the country for seeking greener pastures and difficulties in practicing medicine in the country”, he said and added that most of the female doctors do not practice after getting married in Pakistan.