KARACHI:Sindh Minister for Health and Population Welfare Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho has said that time has come to introduce continue health care system in Sindh especially in less privileged areas and in this regard mother and child health must be given priority.
This she said while presiding over a meeting here in her office on Thursday. Secretary Health Saeed Ahmed Awan, Technical Advisor Population Welfare Department Dr Talib Lashari, Dr Fawad Sheikh, Dr Sohail Bin Saeed and other officers also attended the meeting.
She said that in Tharparkar in certain areas 13 dispensaries would be made functional soon, where food package would be offered to pregnant women beside counseling them in population controlling methods. At each dispensary, there will be five community midwives for counseling these pregnant women and train the on breast feeding, post-delivery complications and the hygiene condition as well.
Dr Azra Pechuo said that in drought hit areas food packages would be given and advisory service would also be provided to these pregnant women on how to control birth ratio, while Sindh health department had focused on institutionalized delivery system.
She told that in Karachi too, experimental dispensaries with EPI specializing on Nutrition Support and Family Planning were also in pipe line.
She assured that in couple of years we would ensure 100 per cent coverage of EPI across the province.
She admitted that there was a need to discourage quacks and to build a transparent system in the department and household mapping to check and identify population growth was the need of the hours.
Health Minister said that at each level counseling on family planning was a must, unless we overcome rapid growth of population, our all efforts might go in vain.