The Federal Minister of Health, Mustafa Kamal, emphasized on Thursday the need for Pakistan to adopt telemedicine as part of his health system.
Speaking to the media after his visit to the Pims Hospital in Islamabad, Kamal declared that it is not feasible to treat the entire population through traditional medical care systems.
He pointed out that the lack of basic health units forces people to trust the main hospitals. Kamal stressed that telemedicine, a global practice, could help provide medical services, including consultations and medications, directly to people’s doors.
“We need to provide medications and doctors at people’s doors. We cannot treat everyone through hospitals alone. Taking into account the modern world, we must move towards telemedicine,” he said.
He shared that seven operations theaters have been built at a cost of RS 2.1 billion, which will be equipped with state -of -the -art facilities. While recognizing that things are not ideal, he said there is a margin of improvement.
Mustafa Kamal also clarified that there are currently no plans to deliver Pims to a public-private association. He added that the future work in the health card scheme is underway.
“The health sector is connected to the well -being of humanity. When people have pain, they go to hospitals. The poor resort to public hospitals, while the rich can afford private attention,” he said.
During the visit, the patients raised numerous complaints against the Minister of Health.
A patient said there was a shortage of medicines and hospital beds. Another shared that last month, X -ray films had been exhausted and patients were forced to visit private laboratories.
A man said that his brother was in a condition that threatened life, but there was not an available ICU bed. In response, the executive director of Pims, Dr. Rana Imran Sikandar, declared that the ICU beds could not be assigned to cancer patients.
Minister Mustafa Kamal ordered the hospital authorities to provide all possible facilities to patients.
