PESHAWAR - In order to reduce infant mortality rate and to ensure availability of quality emergency care facilities to children, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided in principle to establish specialised Children Emergency Rooms and Telemedicine Satellite Centers in public sector hospitals of the province. The decision was taken at a meeting held here the other day with Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Khan Gandapur in the chair. Provincial Minister for Health Syed Qasim Ali Shah, Advisor to CM for Finance Muzamil Aslam, Additional Chief Secretary for Planning and Development, Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah, Secretary Health Adeel Shah and high ups of Child Life Foundation attended the meeting.
While briefing the participants about the proposed programme for setting up the Emergency Rooms and Telemedicine Satellite Centres, it was told that nine state of the art Emergency Rooms and 100 Telemedicine Satellite Centres would be established with the aim to ensure availability of quality emergency healthcare facilities to children at their door steps adding that the proposed Emergency Rooms and Telemedicine Centres would be equipped with modern instruments alongside 24/7 availability of specialised doctors and other paramedical staff. It was agreed in the meeting that MoU to this effect will be signed between provincial health department and Child Life foundation after the formal approval of the provincial cabinet.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister termed the establishment of Emergency Rooms and Telemedicine Centres as need of the day and directed the quarters concerned for finalisation of home-work as soon as possible and table the matter before the cabinet for formal approval. He termed the reforms in health sector and provision of quality healthcare facilities to citizens as one of the priority areas of his government and said that the incumbent government would not only encourage adoption of latest technology for this purpose but will also provide required resources on priority basis.
