LAHORE - Three day conference on "Transforming Secondary Health Care in Punjab" organized by Punjab Health Department in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) concluded at a local hotel on Friday. Purpose of this conference was to get experts recommendations for improvements in Secondary Health Care (SHC) services to get maximum benefits from strengthened Primary Health Care (PHC) services and initiatives taken recently in Punjab. The initiatives taken in PHC area warranted and generated needs of an effective and efficient SHC.
The conference was sponsored and supported both financially and technically by WHO and Policy & Strategic Planning Unit (PSPU) of Health Department gathered experts from all relevant areas including public health experts from academia, development partners to provide their expertise in order to get practical and durable recommendations. On the 3rd day of the conference, session was chaired by Advisor to Punjab Chief Minister on Health Kh Salman Rafiq, Secretary Health Jawwad Rafiq Malik, Director General Health Services Dr Zahid Pervaiz, WHO’s Dr Sameen Siddique, MPA Adnan Fareed and Dr Nadia Ali.
Program Director PSPU Ali Bahadur Qazi gave an overview of technical sessions proceeding made during previous two days. He said that all suggestions and recommendation gathered at the conference would be presented to CM Punjab with workable action plan.  Additional Program Director PSPU Dr Zahida Sarwar highlighted the finding of rapid hospital assessment. Seven key areas were identified by the Department of Health in consultation with CM secretariat and WHO. The areas included human resource management, medicine and equipment, referral system, monitoring and evaluation, quality and safety, contracting model and MIS. She emphasize on the immediate effects that could be taken to strengthen the Secondary Healthcare System in Punjab.
Director Health Systems Development WHO-EMRO Dr Sameen Saddique presented the WHO perspective and highlighted the health care system in rest of the world in comparison with Pakistan.
She explained in-depth the quality and safety of health care in Pakistan.
Jawwad Rafiq thanked all development partners, donor and organizers of the conference. He appreciated the whole exercise made during conference and gave his strong willingness that government would support all the report and action plans come out from this activity. Department will make action plan with timeline to present it to the CM and this recipe would be the benchmark in the health care system in Punjab.