Staff Reporter
Punjab Health Minister Dr Yasmin Rashid reviewed the pace of development work on different projects in a meeting at the Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Department here on Wednesday.
The projects reviewed included: Institute of Urology and Transplantation Rawalpindi, DHQ Gujranwala, facilities at Teaching Hospitals of Punjab, Mother and Child Block Ganga Ram Lahore, Dental College Jubilee Town Lahore, Nishter-2 Multan, Sheikh Zayed Hospital-2 Rahim Yar Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan Institute of cardiology.
Present in the meeting were Secretary Health South Ajmal Bhatti, Additional Secretary Development Dr Asif Tufail, Additional Secretary Admin Amir Hussain Ghazi, Chief Planning Officer Abdul Haq Bhatti, Vice Chancellor Fatima Jinnah Medical University Prof Dr Amir Zaman Khan, MS Ganga Ram Hospital Dr Athar, Prof Javed Chaudhry and senior officials.
Additional Secretary SH&ME Department Dr Asif Tufail and Chief Planning Officer Abdul Haq Bhatti gave briefing to the Health Minister on the progress on these projects.
The Health Minister said, “International standard services will be available in Punjab once these projects are complete.
Development work is underway at a fast pace and for the first time, services of this standard and scale are being developed. Besides our new projects, the upgradation work on existing facilities is also underway.
The Dera Ghazi Khan Institute of shall cater to hundreds of thousands of people in the Division. Dental College Jubilee Town shall provide services to a large area in the provincial capital.
All projects shall be completed within deadlines and we are focusing on maximum relief for people in health services.
Development and innovation in health and education are among the foremost priorities of Prime Minister Imran Khan. No one will be allowed to waste public money.
Provision of essential services and improvement in standards of living of people remain our primary focus.”
Meanwhile, Punjab Law and Cooperatives Minister Raja Basharat said that the pace of reforms in Punjab’s jails is disappointing and the authorities concerned must accelerate the efforts to improve condition in prisons and prisoner’s life by implementing the instructions issued by Punjab Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar in this regard.
He was addressing a performance review meeting of the Prisons and Prosecution Departments here.
The meeting reviewed the progress on departmental reforms and development projets. Raja Basharat said that the Prosecution department should take effective measures for early conviction of perpetrators of violence against women.
He directed the Prosecution department to activate the case management system without further delay and said that strong prosecution should be carried out to increase the conviction rate of culprits involved in heinous crimes.
He further said that a comprehensive strategy should be formulated to compensate the working prisoners for their work in jails.