It has been decided to conduct free hepatitis screening of all the officers and officials of all the public sector departments of Lahore under a hepatitis-free Punjab project.
While setting up of medical camps for free screening of all individuals above 12 years of age will be started at Shahdara from next week. In this regard, Wife of Punjab Governor and Sarwar Foundation’s Vice Chair Begum Perveen Sarwar and Hepatitis Control Programme Head Dr\ Khalid Mehmood signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) here at Health Department where Health DG (Punjab) Dr Haroon Jahangir Khan, Sarwar Foundation’s Khaliquz Zaman, HCP Deputy Director Dr Yadullah Khan and others were also present.
Talking to media, Begum Perveen Sarwar said that for the first time, we in collaboration with Health Department were initiating a programme for free hepatitis screening of employees of public sector departments including health and education, and any employee suffering from this disease will be provide complete medical treatment free of cost, while those with negative hepatitis will be vaccinated.
She said that under the public-private partnership, we have joined hands with Health Department to save the people from this fatal disease across Punjab. In the first phase, she added, free hepatitis screening and treatment process will be initiated from Lahore’s Shahdara area, where free medical camps will be set up in all its union councils by next week, and the patients will be provided all medical facilities.
HCP Head Dr. Khalid Mehmood said, “I am sure that after having an agreement with Sarwar Foundation, we will succeed in saving the people from this fatal disease, and public sector employees are being made part of this programme so that hepatitis-infected employees can be provided with free medical facilities.” After Shahdara, he added, the scope of this free hepatitis screening will be extended to other cities of Punjab as well.
