KARACHI: Wrangling clouds future of health facility
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 23: The rural health centre in Shershah has come a long way during the last 12 months or so. The centre can, and should, improve further but due to a misunderstanding between its administration and a Town Health Officer its future is in doldrums.
According to a well-placed source, during the last one year the UNICEF has invested upwards of Rs1 million in the RHC so that it could one day be converted into a 24-hour facility where emergency obstetric operations could be undertaken.
The RHC has still not become an emergency obstetrical care centre but is on the way to becoming one, as it has already become a basic obstetric care unit. “There was a time not long ago when this was only a 9am to 12noon facility,” said the source on Wednesday.
“That is, the outpatient department used to open at about 9 in the morning and close at mid-day. Then due to the efforts of some devoted people things started to improve. The hospital was attached to Qatar Hospital and now between 80 and 90 childbirth cases are handled in the centre every month.”
In addition, some postgraduates students were deputed there so that the centre could be run round the clock. However, due to a misunderstanding one of the women postgraduate students, who resided on the premises, was scolded severely by the Town Health Officer recently, the source told Dawn.
“Instead of helping us reorganize and remodel the RHC the THO, who is an influential lady, is creating hurdles for the administration. I think she is being misguided and misinformed by the junior staff who don’t want to work at all.”
The source said the THO’s attitude had made it very difficult for the medical superintendent and other senior staff to run the health centre properly. “There’s a lot of anger and resentment among the staff who have been demotivated to a great extent.”
If the THO didn’t realize soon that she was doing nothing but strengthening the hands of the incompetent and corrupt, all the money and effort put in by various well-meaning individuals would go to waste, claimed the source.
