PIMA urges govt to declare `food emergency’ in Thar

MN Report

Karachi: Pakistan Islamic Medical Association’s (PIMA) central president Dr Sohail Akhtar has demanded of the government to declare food emergency in Tharparkar district to reduce the mortality rate among infants. 

Speaking at a news conference at Karachi Press Club, he said that since children and pregnant women have been facing severe food insecurity in Thar, it was obligatory upon Sindh government to declare `food emergency’ in Tharparkar district to help reduce mortally rate of new-born babies.

Underscoring the need for improving health facilities in the affected district, he said that infants with emergency requirements were being referred to hospitals in Hyderabad and Karachi owing to acute shortage of doctors, nurses, paramedics in the hospitals of the district.

He also urged the provincial health authorities to arrange training programmes for the existing staff so that they could handle the crisis in an effective and efficient manner.

Speaking on the occasion, prominent pediatrician Dr Azhar Chughtai said that since mothers in Thar have been facing food insecurity problem, their infants were becoming victims of severe malnourishment.

He said that the local educated youths who have been trained by PIMA should be provided with jobs to help overcome the prevailing situation in the Thar district.

PIMA’s Sindh chapter’s general secretary Dr Fayyaz Alam and other office-bearers, including Dr Rao Muhammad Naeem and Dr Syed Ahmer Hamid, were also present on this occasion.