Awareness campaign should be launched regarding donation of human organs to save the ailing humanity: Mujtaba Shuja

Lahore: Punjab Minister for Excise & Taxation, Law and Finance Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman has asked the doctor’s community to create awareness among the masses regarding donation of human organs to save the ailing humanity.

He said that 50 thousand die each year because of kidney failure, 10 thousand because of liver failure and more than six thousand due to heart failure in the country. He said that the present government is paying full attention towards provision of state-of-the-art healthcare facilities to the people at grass root level, besides this, the government through the re-engineering of available resources, establishing tertiary care facilities in the province for the provision of modern & standardized cardio-vascular health facilities to the people.

He said that by increasing the health budget, the present government has ensured modern health facilities and free medicines to poor and resource-less people. He said that it is high time for promoting social mobilization against smoking also as  billions of rupees are being wasted on smoking annually which is major cause of spread of deadly diseases like TB, lungs cancer and even cardiovascular diseases as well as other chest diseases even chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases which 4th main cause of deaths in the world and 600 million people are victims of this disease in the world, whereas, according to WHO 3 million people die each year in the world due to these complications.

He stressed the need of door-to-door & child-to-child coordination and involvement of lady health workers for the success of immunization programmes. He said that WHO would continue its assistance for the provision of basic healthcare facilities at grass root level.

While talking to people on the occasion of his nephew’s marriage  , Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said that in Pakistan itself, more than 40% of the adultery population over the age of 45 suffers from one form or the other of non-communicable disease, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer and the trend seems to be on the rise.

This increasing trend is likely to double the burden of disease in developing countries and clearly is likely to have significant health economic implications as a result of cost of care and lost productivity costs, he maintained. He said that the protective healthcare programmes aim at reducing morbidity, disabilities and mortality caused by seven vaccine preventable diseases namely Childhood Tuberculosis, Poliomyelitis, Diphtheria, Pertussis, Measles, Neonatal tetanus and Hepatitis-B by vaccinating all children below one year of age, in addition, all pregnant women are vaccinated against tetanus. The priority targets of the programme are polio eradication followed by elimination of Neonatal Tetanus & measles, he concluded.