KARACHI: Indus Health Network (IHN) is going to establish 500 primary healthcare clinics throughout the country by 2030 with focus on family medicines and diabetes, and all these clinics would be linked to tertiary-care hospitals, either run by the Indus Health Network or the respective provincial governments to provide quality healthcare services to poor people of Pakistan, says a Press release.
“Neither the private nor the government-run hospitals are providing quality healthcare services to people in Pakistan. Private hospitals are charging a lot but except for a few, most of private hospitals are not meeting healthcare needs of people while everybody knows about the service delivery of government-run hospitals. In these circumstances, we have planned to establish 500 primary healthcare clinics in the country with focus on primary healthcare and diabetes”, said Dr. Abdul Bari Khan, Chief Executive Officer of IHN while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of Ehad Medical Center in Bahadurabad area of Karachi.
Renowned physicians and health experts including eminent diabetologists Prof. Dr. Abdul Basit, Prof. Dr. Zaman Shaikh, Prof. Dr. Mehfooz Alam, Dr. Hooria Chaudhry, renowned TV artist Ayaz Khan, Syed Yasir Hashmi and others were also present and spoke at the inauguration of 2nd branch of Ehad Medical Center in the city.
Dr. Abdul Bari deplored that governments were not doing enough to meet the healthcare needs of the people of Pakistan where ‘filthy rich’ used to travel abroad to seek medical treatment while some who could afford to avail expensive health services at private medical institutions visit private hospitals but added that a vast majority of Pakistanis were not being properly treated and cured at public and most of the private health facilities in the country.
“Unfortunately, middle, lower middle and poor segments of Pakistani society have no place to avail proper medical treatment despite spending major portion of their monthly incomes. Except for a few, most of the private hospitals are busy in looting patients while public hospitals are overburdened and cannot provide proper healthcare services to the people”, Dr. Bari said.
He expressed the hope that with the establishment of primary healthcare clinics and medical centers like Ehad Medical Center, people would be able to avail quality medical consultation, effective and genuine medicines and authentic diagnostic services.
He further deplored that 90 percent of the blood banks were providing “unscreened and tainted blood” to the people in Pakistan and added that blood transfusion services had become a source of spread of lethal diseases to people instead of curing them.
“Instead of getting cured and healed, our children and people are contracting lethal infectious disease through tainted blood but nobody is looking into this serious issue”, he observed.
Pledging to assist the Ehad Medical Center network in provision of quality medical services to people, Prof. Bari said Indus Hospital Network had the highest number of clinical pharmacists compared to any other health facility in Pakistan and vowed to follow the structure of Ehad at their planned primary healthcare clinics in the country.
Eminent diabetic expert and Medical Director of the Ehad Medical Center Prof. Dr. Abdul Basit said he was planning to establish such clinics for the last 15-20 years where all the consultation and treatment facilities are available to patients under one-roof and added that as per their plan to standardize diabetes care in Pakistan, they were planning to establish 3000 such clinics throughout the country.
“At Ehad, we are providing quality consultation services, diagnostics, telemedicine, education on diet and lifestyle, obesity management as well as world class pharmacy services”, Prof. Basit informed and added that global practices and advancements in the field of diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and other lifestyle diseases would be practiced and followed at the Ehad medical center.
Renowned endocrinologist Prof. Zaman Shaikh said it was heartening to learn that health fraternity had stopped looking towards the government for provision of healthcare facilities to people and now they had joined hands to resolve the healthcare issues of masses on self-help basis.
“Despite our repeated suggestions and recommendations for the establishment of primary healthcare facilities and diabetes clinics at Tehsil and Taluka levels, authorities are unmoved for last several decades but now doctors and physicians have joined hands, which is a good omen for the people of Pakistan”, he said added that diabetes was an expensive disease and never abandon a person till his or her last breath.
Dr. Hooria Chaudhry spoke about availability of telemedicine facility at the Ehad Medical Center through which, patients could consult doctors in entire Pakistan and developed countries of the world including US, Europe, Turkey and Middle East while GM operations of the Ehad Medical Center Yasir Hashmi spoke about provision of genuine medicines in consultation with clinical pharmacists to patients at their helath facility.
Leading Rheumatologist of the country Prof. Dr. Mehfooz Alam, TV artist Ayaz Khan and several others also spoke on the occasion.