Punjab Government asks NGOs to establish Hospitals and medical colleges in the province

Lahore : The government of Punjab has decided to offer NGOs from various friendly countries to establish state-of-the-art hospitals and medical colleges in different areas of the province on public private partnership basis.

The newly established tertiary healthcare outlets will be offered to make use of health facilities and human resources available in nearby public sector hospitals while these newly established medical colleges on the basis of public private partnership would be allowed to affiliate the surrounding government sector hospitals for teaching as well as consultancy purposes along with assuming the management of these government sector hospitals.

The Punjab government would provide such well-reputed NGOs the land required for this purpose free of cost.

This health reforms strategy was revealed in a meeting of special committee to review the arrangements of coming tour of technocrats of health sector to Ankra and Istanbul next week.

Additional Chief Secretary Punjab Shumail Ahmad Khawaja presided over the meeting which was attended by Secretary Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Najam Ahmed Shah, Special Secretary Dr. Saajid Chuhan, Additional Secretary Primary & Secondary Healthcare Faisal Zahoor, Director General Emergency Services Punjab Dr. Rizwan Naseer and Member Health P&D Board Punjab Dr. Shabana Haider.

The meeting was informed that on the special directions of Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif, a high power 7-member delegation headed by Shumail Ahmad Khawaja, the ACS Punjab will leave for a week long study tour of Turkey on November 6, this year.

This delegation will explore the areas of collaboration in new avenues of health sector with the government of Turkey after witnessing the level of success of the healthcare system being administered in Turkey. These areas of collaboration would comprise of pharmacy system, health management, information system, vaccination programme for children, hospital waste management, blood transfusion services and other areas in which the Turkish system would be helpful for replication in the province of Punjab.

ACS Punjab Shumail Ahmad Khawaja informed the meeting that the Chief Minister has directed to include study of fire safety and fire prevention system in both Ankra and Istanbul so that the incidents of fire in various cities of Punjab could also be prevented.