KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal BhuttoZardari on Monday took great pride in the Sindh government`s public-private partnership initiatives especially in healthcare sector and lauded its significant achievements in reducing the child mortality rate in the province.

The PPP chief was speaking at a ceremony to mark the release of a report by the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators (PALISI) network, a US-based health institute, highlighting a significant reduction in child mortality rate at Sindh`s public hospitals.

The event was organised by Dow University of Health Sciences at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi.

While Mr Bhutto-Zardari did not speak much on the report during his speech, he took to social media later and shared its key findings.

`Infant mortality rates in Sindh now stand at 2.9 percent while rest of Pakistan is at 5.4 percent,` he posted on X (formerly Twitter).

He continued: `US based PALISI Global health reports that both Sheikh Zayed Children Hospital Larkana & Civil Hospital Karachi have a 1.2 percent mortality rate. Compared to 1.4 percent for Aga Khan which is a Private hospital and 6.3 percent rate in 19 similar countries.

`Our child-life facility is now the only public sector pediatric facility in Pakistan to be rated 5/5 SafeCare Quality level.

Proud of everyone who has been a part of the successful transformation of Sindh`s healthcare over the last 15 years,` the X post concluded.`Sindh outperformed other provinces` During his speech at the CHK, Mr Bhutto-Zardari noted that the public-private partnership programmes of Sindh had outperformed all other provinces and the federal government.

He recalled that the publicprivate partnership model was first envisioned by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the party`s 1993 election manifesto, which was now yielding results.

`Punjab has established two emergency rooms, in Multan and Lahore, while Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, and other regions have also set up similar facilities. We need to engage with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Kashmir to ensure their people benefit from this initiative as well,` he said.

He congratulated the Sindh government, the provincial health department, and the ChildLife Foundation for their efforts. `It is a moment of pride that your hard work and success are now being recognised globally. Congratulations to all of you,` he added.

Recalling the past, PPP chairman said that after 2010, certain segments of the media `exaggerated` child mortality rates in Sindh, often portraying the province in a negative light.

`Reports about child mortal-ity were sensationalised as breaking news, with live feeds from hospitals across Sindh starting from Tharparkar,` he stated.

While child mortality rates are improving across Pakistan, the stats remain alarmingly high, posing a challenge for all provinces, including Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, he said.

He said that over the last 15 years, the Sindh government launched several initiatives to address this issue, including partnerships with the ChildLife Foundation under the publicprivate partnership model.

`Emergency facilities for children have been established in Karachi, Larkana, Nawabshah, Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Khairpur, alongside telemedicine services in 106 tehsils,` said Mr Bhutto-Zardari.

`Our dream is to establish ChildLife emergency facilities in every district to provide free and quality healthcare to the public,` he said and appreciated the future plans to introduce urgent care centres to reduce the burden on existing emergency facilities.

He attributed this progress to the 18th Amendment and the Sindh government`s commitment to the public-private partnership model.

He also pointed out that Sindh often faces resource shortagesdue to inequitable federal allocations. However, the PPP`s government countered these challenges by adopting the publicprivate partnership programme, he added.

Earlier, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the successful partnership between the Sindh government and the ChildLife Foundation had reduced infant mortality in the province to 2.9pc, which is significantly lower than the national average of 5.4pc.

`The paediatric mortality rate in ChildLife-operated emergency rooms stands at just 1.2 per cent, comparable to the best private hospit als in the country, he said.

The CM emphasised that his government was dedicated to ensuring that every child in the province has access to worldclass emergency healthcare within 30 minutes, available round the clock and free of charge.

He said that his government had launched a 24/7 telemedicine network across all 105 tehsils of Sindh, allowing access to expert paediatric consultations, even in the most remote areas.

At the beginning of the programme, Mr Bhutto-Zardari and the CM visited the telemedicine control room and got a briefing on the operation of the system.