Lahore, Pakistan: The Government of Punjab has decided in principle to give contract to Turkish firms to maintain Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS) in the province.
According to sources, a meeting was held in this regard here on Friday which was headed by Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shebaz Sharif and was attended by officials of Turkish and Punjab Health ministries.
It may be mentioned that solid waste management of Lahore and Rawalpindi has already been looked after by Turkish firms.
It is pertinent to mention that a Turkish delegation comprising health officials visited the Punjab Healthcare Commission (PHC) on December 2, 2016 to understand the working of PHC. The head of delegation Dr Hasan Cagil who is public health specialist from Turkey was briefed about Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS).
Sources claim that Chief Minister Punjab is involving Turkish Health officials to enhance the capacity of government hospitals in the province and Punjab government has decided in principle to invite Turkish firms to manage selected government hospitals.
“Turkish ministry of Health and Turkish firms can help us to increase service standards and there is no harm to give them contract to man certain government hospitals”, commented an official of Health Department while requesting to maintain identity as official is not authorize to talk with media-persons.
Sources say that process of contracting hospitals to Turkish firms will not like privatisation of government hospitals rather it would only outsourcing of pivotal services including management of biometric attendance of staff, inventory management of medicines to stop pilferage of medicines, maintaining cleanliness and proper disposal of waste.
