M.Z. Rifat
It is bitter fact that over the years, for varying reasons and factors, number of critical  and fatal diseases have surfaced from which increasing number of population including men, women and even children are suffering. Somehow, treatment facilities for these fatal diseases including hepatitis have not been developed at matching pace and limited facilities available are obviously pretty costly and out of the reach of common poor man with very meager limited resources.There is good news for the growing number of patients suffering for number of fatal diseases like hepatitis  that the Punjab Government is not only attaching  priority to the provision of most modern healthcare facilities to the people in the rural and urban areas throughout the province but also establishing and developing treatment facilities for more and more fatal diseases quite regularly. It is indeed quite commendable that Pakistan’s first ever hepatitis treatment filter clinic has not only been established at the site of Pakistan Kidney and Liver  Transplant Institute and Research Centre in Lahore but it has since been inaugurated by Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif.  According to the reports in the newspapers, the Chief Minister on this occasion also laid the foundation stone of the main building of Pakistan Kidney & Liver Transplant Institute & Research Centre. It is also appreciable that since it is first of its kind institute, instead of Punjab it has been named as Pakistan  Kidney & Liver Transplant Institute & Research Centre and as such it will will be providing medical facilities, as stated by the Chief Minister,  to the people from Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pukhtoonkhwah , Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir besides Punjab. With the state-of-the-art machinery installed at this new heath care facility, the filter clinic will be providing  best modern  medical facilities to  the hepatitis  patients  whereas  the institute will be providing  most modern healthcare facility to the patients with liver transplant facility as well.It is also appreciable to note that  such filter clinics  are also going to be set up in all 36 districts of the province and these clinics will hopefully start providing  medical facilities to the hepatitis patients by end of 2017, as announced by the chief minister who should be given due credit for setting things right in the health sector and taking steps for provision of all possible most modern healthcare facilities to the people on priority basis.
