RAWALPINDI, March 26: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Sunday said the government was following a comprehensive policy to provide medical care at the grassroots level. Addressing at the silver jubilee celebrations of the passing-out of the Army Medical College graduates’ first batch, President Musharraf told the doctors, alumni, faculty and students that the human resource development formed the core of durable and all-round development.

“It includes poverty reduction and access to better health and education facilities — and we are fully focused on all these.”

The president observed that denial of basic education and health facilities leads to poverty and extremism.

On realising better health facilities, the president said, the government had aimed at improving medical facilities at primary and secondary levels in contrast with the previous governments’ misplaced emphasis on tertiary level alone.

President Musharraf said he was personally spearheading efforts to achieve the objective of access to medical facilities at the grassroots level.

“We analysed the pre-1999 situation and then strategized that we must focus on provision of medical facilities at primary and secondary levels as it is the rural areas, which house the majority of our population — hence the emphasis on basic health units.”

The president stated that the government had spent Rs35 billion on 5,000 basic health units across the country in the last five years and 50,000 people were employed with each district having 1,000 employees.

However, the president said the Punjab government had come up with the most effective results and added that its successful model of working under the Rural Health Support Programme would be replicated in all provinces.

He said the government would activate clusters of basic health units across the country, with a handsomely paid doctor having finances and medical supplies to take care of three basic health units.

The president said the Punjab government had targetted 12 districts where millions of people were receiving medical facilities free of cost.

He said the decentralized system and outsourcing of medical supplies had not only ensured provision of better healthcare but also saved the districts huge sums of money.

On the preventive side, the president said the government was fully conscious of the importance of providing safe drinking water.

The government would ensure provision of safe drinking water to the entire nation by next year as it would prevent spread of water-borne diseases and cut expenditures on healthcare, he said.

“We will provide one filtration plant for every thousand persons all over the country — we are striving to meet this target by next year, far ahead of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals set for year 2015.”

The president informed the gathering that the UN had assured assistance in the project.

Speaking about challenges facing the country, the president referred to extremism and said the country was addressing the malaise holistically.

The president praised the high standard of education at the Army Medical College and said it met the Army’s requirement of having trained doctors, maintaining high standards of professionalism and dedicated services.

The president advised the students to stay current with the latest developments in the field, render their services in humility as they have to treat patients, cling to high standards of professionalism and treat all patients equally without any discrimination.

He said the doctors serving in the civil sector should provide inexpensive medical treatment to the poor.

The president accepted the request to become Patron-in-Chief of the Amcolians Alumni. He presented mementos to the best graduates of each of the 25 batches, who had graduated from the prestigious medical institution since 1981.

The college was established in 1977 with the objective to serve as backbone of medical corps.

Earlier, Principal of Army Medical College Maj-Gen Masood in his address of welcome said the Army Medical College has maintained its high standards of academics over the years. “This is reflected in its results which stand close to 100 per cent every year,” he said.—APP