Karachi, 18 February 2016: Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) has demanded to impose ‘food emergency’ across the Thar region to overcome the looming catastrophic food crises. Addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club on Thursday, President Dr. Sohail Akhtar said that those claiming no food crises and availability of health facilities in Thar are unaware of the ground realities. He elaborated that Thar is such a remote and unfortunate district where children are born with malnutrition because their mothers are already victims of malnutrition. The children who born underweight along with deficiency of nutrition are highly vulnerable to diseases due to lack of immunity, he said while describing the miseries of people in Thar district and adjoining areas.
Presenting the statistics, he said that during the February 2015 and January 2016, 1124 infants were admitted at the nursery of Civil Hospital Mitthi. Out of which 685 newborns were categorized with weight less than 2.5 kilogram, while 431 were with normal range weight. 121 children were referred to Hyderabad or Karachi as the health centre was deprived of ventilators, while 256 children died and 671 children were released after provision of treatment.
Dr. Akhtar further said that due to unavailability of proper nutritional food, the women in Thar are also underweight and are facing blood deficiency. Resultantly the newborn children inherit the same lacking.
He further said that the PIMA had upgraded the nursery of CHM in February 2015, installed an oxygen line and donated necessary equipment worth Rs1 million to the hospital. He said that though the government had appointed five doctors at the hospital, there was no trained staff there. He said that PIMA not only arranged a trained staff from Karachi to work at CHM but also has been providing stipend and training to five local youths at the hospital so as the local people could be facilitated.
Dr. Sohail added that PIMA has extended its program by the end of the ongoing year on the request of the hospital administration. On the occasion, Dr. Azhar chaughtai of PIMA said that they do not want any funds from the government and vowed to continue serving the people of Sindh. He also offered their cooperation to the provincial government in the field of technical training. He said that the PIMA project at CHM has proved that situation of health sector can be considerably uplifted with the cooperation of the government and welfare organization.
