ISLAMABAD:Health Services Academy (HSA) on Wednesday organized a consultative meeting on ‘strengthening infection prevention and control (IPC) practices in Pakistan’.
The consultative meeting was held with the aim to get input from all relevant stakeholders about the strategies to strengthen Infection Prevention System in Pakistan and devised a national IPC training program through stakeholders’ input.
Experts said that the IPC is one of the neglected areas in the health system of Pakistan.
The vice-chancellor of HSA has stated that evidence-based policy and capacity building in IPC among health professionals is inevitable for health system strengthening.
After the pandemic, the government has realized the importance of IPC and strengthening IPC through the collaboration of national, and international institutions, academia, the government sector and relevant partners.
Dr Altaf Ahmad, Head of the department of Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI), pioneer of IPC training in Pakistan, enlightened on the role of IPC in curbing healthcare-associated infections in health facilities of Pakistan.
It was mentioned that IPC guidelines are available however implementation is missing contributing to increased hospital bed occupancy and higher cost.
Improper sanitation measures, poor record-keeping, inadequate water hygiene, and an increasing rate of surgical site infections are major issues.
He emphasized the training of healthcare professionals in housekeeping for proper IPC implementation.
Arifa Khatoon, lead nurse of IPC in the Indus hospital network expressed her thoughts on IPC practices implementation in Pakistan. She underlined the importance of infrastructure, structured training, and behavior change communication for quality IPC practices.
Federal government representative of IPC shared inputs about notification of steering committees, national guidelines and capacity building of hospital staff regarding IPC in Pakistan.
CDC-USA representative Dr. Saeed (CDC Monitoring and Evaluation specialist) intimated to participants about the need to incorporate best practices in IPC training to effectively monitor and train IPC workforce.
One of the development partners emphasized on inclusion of primary and secondary healthcare system and community for IPC implementation.
Provincial representation on IPC from Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab, and Gilgit Baltistan have mentioned notification of IPC committees, and commencement of training programs in teaching hospitals.
Participants said that the lack of knowledge on IPC and solid waste management is contributing to poor IPC practices. They added a lot needs to be done, in terms of implementation.
They said that indicators related to waste disposal are added in the District health information system and that the evaluation mechanism to monitor IPC progress in health facilities is the need of the hour.
Infectious disease experts mentioned the need to focus aggressively on implementation measures from national to provincial levels and train health professionals in basic knowledge of IPC.
They said that the healthcare surveillance system should be strengthened and provincial stakeholders should make PC-1 regarding IPC. There is a need for political commitment and a dedicated budget for IPC at provincial health departments, they added.
The meeting was summarized by the technical lead of the think tank. It was agreed to adopt best practices in line with international guidelines with local context to develop an effective IPC program for health professionals as a systematic monitoring mechanism can ensure IPC implementation.