The Sindh cabinet on Saturday approved a bill, which, upon enactment, would made refusing immunisation against vaccine-preventable diseases a punishable offence in the province.
The cabinet discussed around 40 agenda items, including approval of the Sindh Immunisation and Epidemic Control Act 2023 and eight other health-related matters.
The meeting was chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at the CM House and attended by provincial ministers, advisers, special assistants and bureaucrats.
The cabinet was told that the main objective of the Sindh Immunisation and Epidemic Control Act 2023 was to prevent and control epidemic diseases in the province by ensuring immunisation.
Under the draft law, the parents or guardians of children or unprotected persons are responsible to bring them to vaccination centres in time so that they are duly vaccinated. If the local authority finds that an unprotected person or parents or guardians has violated provisions of the law, they will be delivered a notice.
If the parents or guardians still do not comply with the law, the local authority shall report to a first class magistrate for punishment under the law. The cabinet approved the bill and referred it to the provincial assembly.
The health department told the cabinet that medico-legal services in Sindh were unorganised with no service structure, job descriptions and guidelines. Consequently, the criminal justice system faced problems in prosecution and conviction.
The cabinet was informed that the health department had decided to strengthen the medico-legal system on modern scientific grounds.
The cabinet approved a draft bill to regulate the medico-legal system through the establishment of the Sindh Medicolegal Directorate.
The cabinet was also told that the Children of Adam, Karachi, and health department had requested for allocation of Rs1.967 billion as grant-in-aid for five years to establish psychiatric facilities at three government Hospitals — Basic Health Unit Dumba Goth, New Urban Health Center Gadap and New Karachi Urban Health Center Goharabad.
It was said that a large segment of the population in the country suffered from some or other mental illness, and unfortunately, there was a dearth of psychiatrists and psychiatric hospitals. The cabinet approved the proposal of setting up the three psychiatric facilities. The Sindh cabinet also decided to hand over the Mehar taluka hospital to the Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences for five years to upgrade the facility.
Another agenda item was related to the District Headquarters Hospital, Badin. The cabinet was told that the hospital had been outsourced to the Indus Hospital in 2015 for 10 years. The Indus Hospital requested that the existing budget allocation for the hospital was not sufficient and needed to be enhanced. It was said that Ferguson had worked out the hospital’s budget for the remaining four years and identified Rs1.106 billion as a liability spent by the Indus Hospital as bridge financing. The cabinet approved the four-year budget of Rs9.06 billion.
The cabinet also approved the draft Sindh Faculty of Paramedical & Allied Health Sciences Act 2023 to establish a faculty for supervising and conducting paramedical courses and training.
The meeting was told that a delegation from the University of Medical Science, Zahedan, had recently visited Karachi. During the visit, the Iranian delegation signed a memorandum of understanding with the health department, under which the latter agreed to conduct a short training course on entomological surveillance of dengue fever vectors for the entomological expert delegation from the Zahedan university.
Considering the high incidence of beta-thalassaemia in Sindh and the success of the thalassaemia disease control programme in Iran, an expert team from the Sindh health department would visit the Iranian varsity to exchange experiences and explore areas for cooperation regarding beta thalassaemia. The cabinet approved the MoU.
Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh informed the cabinet that the K-Electric had claimed late payment surcharges against the Sindh government connections amounting to Rs10 billion to Rs12 billion.
It was said that under Nepra rules, KE and all other Discos were required to clear the electricity dues correctly, based on meter reading only, and in case of a meter fault, the bills were to be charged on an average basis for Rs2 billing cycles (two months), but, it had been observed that the KE billed the government connections on an average basis for many years.
The cabinet directed the energy department to sign an agreement with the KE and resolve the issues. The cabinet also discussed the Thar coal project and provincial water policy.
Published at The News on 23rd July 2023