Centre lacks capacity to run Karachi’s major hospitals: Dr Azra

Sindh’s health minister on Wednesday said that giving Karachi’s major tertiary-care hospitals under the control of the federal government will be a violation of the 18th amendment.

Dr Azra Pechuho was referring to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC), the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) and the National Institute of Child Health (NICH). Talking to the media after inaugurating a family medicine clinic in Hijrat Colony, she vowed to file a review petition in the Supreme Court if the Centre were to gain control of the city’s major health facilities.

“The federal government lacks the capacity to run these institutions effectively. We’re giving more than Rs8 billion to these hospitals through our indigenous resources. If these institutions are handed over to federal control, we’ll file a review petition after seeking legal opinion.”

Dr Azra said the condition of all three federal government hospitals improved after devolution, as Sindh’s administration provided billions of rupees to them through indigenous resources.

“If these hospitals are given under the Centre’s control despite our legal efforts, we’ll ask them to fund the facilities themselves because we won’t be able to go on financially supporting federal institutions.”

Trauma centres

Dr Azra said they will make 31 trauma centres operational throughout Sindh that were established at various district and taluka hospitals, saying that these centres will be linked with the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (SMBB) Trauma Centre in Karachi like the NICVD’s satellite centres spread across the province.

“We will present a bill in the Sindh Assembly regarding the SMBB Trauma Centre and all these recently established trauma centres will be linked with the main centre in Karachi to be controlled from here.”

Responding to a question about a recent bill passed by the legislature regarding the Sindh Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, the minister said its headquarters will be set up in Sukkur, from where its executive director will control all its branches across the province as well as its chest pain units in Karachi.

Medical superintendents

Dr Azra admitted that the results of a test conducted for selecting medical superintendents for provincial hospitals were disappointing, as very few candidates managed to acquire satisfactory marks.

She said that the shortlisted candidates will first be interviewed. “The candidates selected for running tertiary- and secondary-care hospitals in the province will be sent to the Aga Khan University for hospital management training so they can acquire proper skills to run public hospitals along modern lines.”

Family medicine clinics

The family medicine clinic the minister inaugurated is the second such establishment set up by the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) in the city.

Lauding the university’s efforts in establishing family medicine clinics in low-income localities, she said that more such dispensaries and clinics will be established in other parts of the city so that the burden on major hospitals can be minimised.

DUHS Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Saeed Quraishy said they renovated a dilapidated building at the cost of Rs15 million and turned it into a modern family medicine clinic, where a qualified consultant, doctors and paramedics will serve the locals and dispense basic medicines. “We will also set up a collection point of Dow Laboratory at the clinic so all the basic diagnostic facilities can be available to the locals.”