Strengthen community urology
Editorial
Urology is a surgical specialty including the illnesses of kidney, urinary bladder, prostate and male infertility issues. Due to lack of awareness among our population about the manifestation of various urological problems, most of the patients overlook the initial stages of a disease and usually come up with complications.
Hence, like other health complications, the situation of urological health of the public in Pakistan is also very much miserable. The urological diseases are increasing day by day in a huge number. Although, there is no specific data available, but according to different sources, the number of patients suffering from kidney and other relevant disorders is around 8 million in Pakistan, whereas the number of qualified urologists is about 700 for the 20 million plus population.
Keeping in view the above mentioned situation, there is a high need for training the medical officers and general practitioners in the basic/rural health units and tehsil/district hospitals of the remote and far flung areas of the province with the basics of community urology to treat the patients at their doorstep which will overcome burden on tertiary care hospitals in the provincial metropolis.
For this great purpose, the Pakistan Center of Excellence in Community Urology (proposed by the urologists of Peshawar) should be established at the Institute of Kidney Diseases (IKD), Hayatabad, where MOs and general medicine practitioners may be professionally trained and equipped with the basics of community urology to control the flow of patients in the city.
Similarly, our basic health units and tehsil hospitals must be facilitated with urologists and urological equipment to offload the burden on single functioning tertiary hospital – IKD, whereas district urologists must be appointed to treat and manage uncomplicated cases at their local stations so as to facilitate the patients and the tertiary hospital.
It is hoped that the provincial government would pay utmost attention to this suggestion and would take all the necessary steps to establish the proposed center. By doing this, the urological health of the people of KP would be definitely improved as they would get the necessary treatment (in case of any problem) at their doorstep by qualified, professional and trained community urologists throughout the province.
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