LAHORE: The Punjab government has launched a programme to deliver medicines to the registered hepatitis patients at their homes.

Registered patients of tuberculosis and AIDS would also start getting medicines through courier service, said Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Khawaja Imran Nazir while formally inaugurating the scheme by handing over a medicine parcel through a courier service at the doorstep of a female hepatitis patient in Shahdra here on Wednesday.

The minister said that every month 83,000 registered hepatitis patients would get medicines at their homes through courier service regularly while the delivery charges would be paid by his department.

He said that every month an SMS would be sent to the mobile phone of the patient for monthly check up in the nearby government hospital so that the condition of the disease could also be examined and the medicines could be adjusted accordingly.

The minister said that this system would eradicate the complaints regarding pilferage of costly medicines. `It is an online computerised system through which data of the patients and the record of medicines` delivery would be maintained and thirdparty validation also be carried out time to time for maintenance of transparency,` said Khawaja Imran Nazir.