Punjab CM to convert 150 health care centers into ”Maryam Nawaz Clinics”

LAHORE: In a recent development, the Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has initiated an ambitious project to convert 150 healthcare centers in the province into modern Maryam Nawaz Clinics, which would house all basic facilities with a completely digital entry-to-treatment system.

At the ceremony, the Chief Minister distributed appointment letters among doctors and took their pledge to serve the patients with dignity.

She also raised the allocation for the dialysis patients’ fund significantly from Rs.700,000 to Rs.1 million and announced plans for motorcycle clinics, a project for organ implants, and the delivery of insulin to type 1 diabetic patients at their homes.

The Chief Minister stressed the need for doctors to help reform the health system, adding that she cannot do it all by herself. She directed the authorities to activate a help desk for patients in the hospitals and to provide the other clinics with standards of cleanliness and care that pigeonhole the future.

She also mentioned that her government was working to overcome a shortage of nurses in Punjab hospitals. Regarding the motorcycle clinics, paramedic staff on motorcycles will provide initial consult diagnosis and treatment, while doctors will be contacted through telemedicine. The Chief Minister acknowledged that health reforms are quite a challenge, but she has vowed to make a difference.

However, lack of funds and hospitals has emerged as a major limitation of the Punjab health system. The Chief Minister expressed her desire to expedite the health team’s responses and provide better service offerings.

She noted that Punjab is providing 90% of the medicines free, but medicine and, especially, insulin pilferages from hospitals is a regrettable issue.

Punjab Healthcare Facilities

Punjab’s health system is catering not only to its own people but also to those from neighboring regions, including Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Kashmir, and Afghanistan.

However, a big problem is the lack of resources and hospitals. The Chief Minister expressed her desire to ensure that the health team’s response should be performed with more speed and that better service should be given.

She mentioned that in Punjab, there is presently around 90 percent of the medicines being provided free of cost, but pilferage of medicines and insulin from hospitals is an unfortunate issue. To address this, the government has deployed capable officers to effect improvements in three big hospitals of Lahore.

The Chief Minister also branches into the many good points of field hospitals, “which have benefited well over seven million people.” She highlighted that the geriatric patients are being treated at their doorsteps, and ‘Clinics on Wheels’ are administering care directly in the streets. She envisages providing cancer therapies for two full months at the homes of no less than 100,000 patients.

She further insists that cancer can be treated using Chinese therapies and is determined to introduce the best machinery in the world into Punjab’s hospitals. At the same time, the newly branched and rehabilitated basic health centers will take on the workload of the big hospitals. In the Maryam Nawaz Health Clinics, ECG, ultrasound, and other machines will be stationed for basic diagnosis.