Rehabilitation center would be established at every district : Kh Salman

Lahore: Rehabilitation center would be established at every district and in the first phase, as a pilot project, nine centers would be set up at every divisional headquarter. International committee for Red Crescent (ICRC) would provide assistance.

It was announced during a meeting between Advisor to Chief Minister Punjab on Health Kh. Salman Rafique with the Physical Rehabilitation Programme Manager of ICRC Corlos Delagdo at Civil Secretariat, here today. Secretary Health Punjab Jawad Rafique Malik, Additional Secretary Health Technical Dr. Salman Shahid, ICRC Rep Bakht Sarwar, Incharge Rehabilitation Center Mayo Hospital Dr. Khalid Jamil, Prof. Qazi Muhammad Saeed from King Edward Medical University and other officers attended the meeting.

Bakht Sarwar briefed the Advisor and the Secretary Health regarding the project. They informed that ICRC is already running a rehabilitation center in Muzaffargarh where 4314 procedures of disabled persons were carried out whereas artificial limbs were also being fixed to the disable persons. He informed that there is a big number of disabled persons in Pakistan due to earthquake and terrorists activities and approximately 5 lakh people need supportive instruments.

Secretary Health Jawad Rafique Malik stressed the need for collecting complete data of disabled persons for better planning for their rehabilitation. He said that apart from providing infrastructure and financial resources, provision of trained human resource is another big challenge.

He said that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has already given his consent to set up rehabilitation centers for disabled persons. He said that government would provide financial resources for these centers but it should be run on management model for which constitution of management committees would be a good option.

ICRC representatives said that their institution is ready to provide running cost of these rehab centers for 3 to 5 years after establishment. It was decided that in the first phase, 9 rehab centers would be set up at divisional headquarters level, out of which, ICRC would establish 6 centers while Punjab government would set up 3 centers.

Kh. Salman Rafique said that he would request Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif for holding a meeting in this regard in which approval of Chief Minister would be obtained for establishing rehab centers in the province.