Vice Chancellor, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Prof Saeed Quraishy has said at least 3000 to 4000 community medicine centres with all the primary facilities are required in the country to lower disease burden on tertiary-care hospitals. “Community medicine centres are need of the hour in Pakistan where comprehensive healthcare facilities, including the diagnostic services, consultation, telemedicine and pharmacy are provided under one roof.
“Such centres will not only reduce burden on tertiary-care hospitals but also be helpful in lowering down death and disability due to preventable diseases”, Prof. Quraishy said after inaugurating the Ehad Medical Centre, a community medicine centre in F.B Area Karachi, according to a press release issued here on Sunday.
DUHS would provide the diagnostic services at the Ehad Medical Centre (EMC), a new chain of community medicine centres established with public-private center, where top of the line consultants would be available. Patients would also be able to consult international experts in the United States, United Kingdom, Turkey and anywhere in the world through telemedicine. Organisers plan to establish 10 such centres in Karachi within a year and 100 such centres throughout the country in next 3-5 years where patients would also be able to consult with doctors while sitting at their homes while medicines would be delivered to their doorsteps through dispatch riders on the same day or latest by the next day.
Prof. Quraishy said Dow University had also established two such community centres in low-income group communities in Karachi but they lacked such comprehensive primary healthcare facilities like Ehad Medical Centre.
However, he hoped that with the help of private centre and philanthropists, more such community centres could be established in different areas to benefit community to provide all their health solutions under one roof. MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Region President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) President Prof. Abdul Basit, who would be heading the clinical side of the chain of Ehad Medical Centres in the country, deplored that national institutes of cardiovascular diseases, urology and transplantation and ophthalmology centres were overwhelmed with patients whose diseases were preventable.
He added that patients had no other option other than to approach the tertiary-care hospitals to seek advanced medical assistance and treatment on state’s expenses. “Thousands of heart attacks, kidney failures, amputations of lower limbs and blindness can be prevented if people are provided comprehensive primary healthcare facilities and services closer to their homes.
“These are preventable diseases and can easily be prevented by setting up primary healthcare facilities like Ehad Medical Centre throughout the country, Prof. Abdul Basit said, adding that such centres would also result in improved healthcare services at the tertiary-care facilities.—APP
