LAHORE: Minister for Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Khwaja Salman Rafique has directed the Punjab Health Foundation (PHF) to take immediate steps for launching loan schemes for general practitioners (GPs).

Soft and small loan schemes should be launched for young doctors, house officers and senior clinicians so that they could set up their clinics and purchase equipment, said the minister while presiding over a meeting of the Board of Governors of PHF here on Thursday.

Setting up of clinics in streets and mohallahs by qualified doctors would be helpful in eradicating quackery, said Khwaja Salman while directing that an awareness campaign through media should also be carried out to motivate unemployed doctors to set up their own clinics.

A proposal was discussed in the meeting that PHF would establish an urban health centre as a pilot project in the city. For the purpose, a dispensary of district level would be established where outpatient department and referral services would be provided. The urban health centre would be attached with a teaching hospital. After the success of the pilot project, more urban health centers attached with the teaching hospitals would be established.

Earlier, PHF Managing Director Ajmal Bhatti informed the BoG meeting that at present up to Rs700,000 loan was being given to doctors without property mortgage, on the basis of documents and personal guarantee and its recovery has been 100 per cent. He said soft loan of Rs200,000 was also being offered to nurses and other paramedics for establishing their set-up.

The meeting also reviewed the cases of waiving of loan surcharge of such doctors who have either died or seriously ill. However, the board advised the PHF to put up these cases in the next meeting along with complete documents proof.

The PHF board also gave approval for increase in salaries of daily-wage employees of the foundation and directed that the notification issued by the finance department for the salary schedule of daily wagers should be followed.

Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Department Secretary Najam Ahmed Shah directed MD Ajmal Bhatti to further accelerate the performance of the foundation.

Mr Shah directed that general practitioners and young doctors should be sensitised to loan schemes of the foundation and for this purpose SMS could be generated by using the data of the GPs available with the health department.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2018