MoH to prepare emergency preparedness plan
By Bushra Makhdoom

ISLAMABAD—A meeting was held in the Ministry of Health under the chairmanship of Federal Caretaker Health Minister Mr. Ejaz Rahim to assess the proposals under consideration for Health Emergency Preparedness Plan. The NDMA has requested Ministry of Health to finalize such a plan. Dr. Ijaz of Health Services Academy made a presentation on behalf of HSA, which was assigned the task of identifying salient features of the plan.
Extensive discussions took place in the meeting, and important guidelines were formulated for finalizing the Health Emergency Preparedness Plan. It was decided that the Ministry of Health will develop a catalytic role to ensure that District Health Plans are developed by District Governments based on clear guidelines. Also with Federal Health Emergency Preparedness Plan to be coordinated by the Ministry of Health. These plans must take into account risk mapping as well as available resource mapping, together with gaps that need to be filled. The Ministry of Health will also require each major Hospital to develop a Hospital Emergency Preparedness Plan for which the training course initiated at HSA through HOPE will be treated as a useful basis.
Key personnel skills and medical teams to cope with emergency situations will be trained. The Minister of Health directed that all stakeholder institutions like NIH, NIRM, HAS, NHIRC and Federal Hospitals will send their inputs to the Ministry within two weeks. These inputs will be critically evaluated by a committee under DG Health. The Minister stressed that a practical orientation was essential. At the same time, the coordination process was necessary to be ensured in developing an effective plan. The Minister advised that a PC-I for developing a Health Emergency Preparedness must take into account the requirements and gaps emerging from the discussions and the inputs to be submitted in the light of the meeting’s deliberations.
The meeting decided that these plans must take into account risk mapping as well as available resource mapping, together with gaps that need to be filled. The Ministry of Health will also require each major hospital to develop a Hospital Emergency Preparedness Plan for which the training course initiated at HSA to be treated as a useful basis. Similarly, key personnel and medical teams will be trained to cope with emergency situations.