ISLAMABAD, Oct 16 (APP): Caretaker Federal Minister for Health Dr Nadeem Jan on Monday said that the government had planned to include health, hygiene, and nutrition in the curricula to create awareness among people from the childhood.
He was addressing a women convention on ‘Family Planning and Population’, which was organized by the Population Programme Wing (PPW) of the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination.
The minister said that the main objective of the convention was to raise the awareness and knowledge of women, particularly the rural women on population issues and family planning.
He said that the population of Pakistan was growing at an alarmingly high growth rate, with addition of around 6.1 million new individuals every year.
“This is more than the size of the total population of countries like Singapore, Denmark and Norway,” he added. “It means every year we are adding the population more than the Denmark’s population in Pakistan.”
He said, “When population is growing we need to increase the resources. If we cannot rapidly increase our resources, we should focus on stabilization and management of our population at the family, community and country level and it is a huge pressure on our resources and economy.”
He suggested to integrate the health, population and nutrition at the federal and provincial levels which would synergize and complement each other. He quoted the example of Iran where family is taken as a unit.
He said that health as well as the family planning were the fundamental human rights. “There is a direct link between female status and development. Women can contribute in the development through literate, educated, well aware and empowered females.”
He said that at the policy level, the number of lady health workers would be increased to 150,000. “We will integrate polio workers and volunteers, which are our asset into LHWs (lady health workers) to address the uncovered areas.”
He said that the government would ensure due respect and dignity for the hospital staff, nurses, midwives, doctors and community workers.
He suggested that there should be a dashboard at the district, provincial and federal levels showing real time information on health, population and family planning to indicate as to where we are going.
He said that the government would revitalize the community health committees comprising local people, teaches, and local religious leaders, besides improvements in family planning, health and polio situation.
He said that population stabilization was the way forward for health and development. “Collaboration is the solution and national development is the responsibility of all of us.”
“We have started a new era of hope and development where everyone should be healthy, happy and prosperous.”
He praised the Women and Population Programme wing’s team of the Ministry of National Health Services for the important event. He awarded shields to the best performers in the field of family planning, maternal and child health.
Provincial secretaries Population Welfare Department Sindh, Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit Baltistan participated in the event. Country Director UNFPA and development partners also attended the convention.
The event was held with the support of UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund).
