Committed to its vision of enabling health care access for all, Sehat Kahani, the leading digital healthcare platform in Pakistan has partnered with Government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) under the stewardship Of AJK IT board and health department of AJK, to launch the first of its kind public-private partnership in upgrading Basic Health Units across AJK into Telemedicine enabled centers, providing virtual health care to patients assisted by Nurse intermediaries.
The purpose of this partnership is mainly to address the concerns arising from inadequate supplies of doctors, and to equate the disproportionality between women, children, and elderly patients.
The partnership has enabled Sehat Kahani to upgrade 13 existing Basic Healthcare Units and clinical facilities into telemedicine facilitation centers in the first three months already.
This news was announced through a simple and dignified event hosted at Muzaffarabad AJK on 20th September 2022. The occasion was graced by the presence of Honorable Health Minister AJK Mr. Nisar Ansar Abdali, Honorable Special assistant to the Prime Minister AJK for IT and Archeology Mr. Mohammad Iqbal, Honorable Minister of Planning and Development AJK Mr.
Chaudry Rafiq, Honorable Dr. Khalid Rafique – Director General IT board AJK, along with senior country leadership for World Health Organization and other business partners of Sehat Kahani.
Speaking to the event, Honorable Health Minister AJK Mr. Nisar Ansar Abdali congratulated Sehat Kahani for the smooth launch of the program and expressed his belief that this partnership can work as a gamechanger in the region.
He also stated that with the quality of care and verified pool of doctors available to practice online, this program can further be extended in the hospitals of AJK to enable access to multiple specialties across Pakistan and the globe.
Honorable Special assistant to the Prime Minister AJK for IT and Archeology Mohammad Iqbal stated his vision of solving important challenges of connectivity, availability of office space, provision of resources, and elimination of resistance faced by the IT sector in AJK.
He further iterated his commitment to creating a smart AJK in next 10 years by facilitating technology driven initiatives such as Sehat Kahani & Government of AJK partnership.
Honorable Minister of Planning and Development AJK Mr. Chaudry Rafiq mentioned his commitment with the vision of the Honorable Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas for digitalization of AJK. He also expressed his belief that with digitalization we can save lives, time, and resources through technology.
Dr. Khalid Rafique – Director General IT board stated that IT board believes in the power of collaboration to bring about digitalization in AJK. Telemedicine services with the help of Sehat Kahani is one of the steps in that process and will be an example for not only ajk, Pakistan and South Asia as well.
Dr. Bushra Shams, Technical officer integrated PHC AJK – World Health Organization (WHO) mentioned that WHO is working with Sehat Kahani to launch more clinics in Kotli and out of box solutions such as Sehat Kahani are the need of the hour to provide efficient, affordable, accessible, and quality health care.
She also stressed on the need for continuation of the partnership beyond this project where the Department of Health and Sehat Kahani should consider extending this solution on multiple other levels.
Dr. Sara Saeed Khurram, Co-Founder & CEO of Sehat Kahani expressed her gratitude for the continued support and trust from department of health and IT board towards Sehat Kahani in execution of this first of its kind public private partnership. She iterated her commitment to facilitate AJK in line with Sehat Kahani’s organizational mission of enabling access to quality healthcare across the country.
Dr. Iffat Zafar Aga, Co-Founder & COO of Sehat Kahani mentioned that Sehat Kahani has begun from 13 BHUs and hopes to scale to more than 25 such BHUs impacting more than 100,000 lives within the next 2 years with the support and collaboration of the IT Ministry and other stakeholders.
She thanked all the honorable dignitaries for their active participation in making this project happen and their valuable participation in the launch event.
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