KARACHI: Report reveals plight of hospitals in the interior
By Nizamuddin Siddiqui
KARACHI, May 23: The state-owned healthcare centres of Shikarpur District between them do not have a single gynaecologist, surveys undertaken by members of the chief minister’s inspection, enquiries and implementation team have revealed.
The government healthcare centres of Tharparkar District have got only four lady doctors — all of them not highly qualified and concentrated in one city, Mithi. The district has only four specialists.
Needless to say, government hospitals in the two districts mentioned found it difficult to handle properly the women’s cases that were complicated, a well-placed source told Dawn on Friday.
He said in Mirpurkhas District 25 buildings, meant to house clinics and hospitals, had been constructed several years ago. These buildings today largely remained unutilized because doctors and paramedical staff had not been appointed yet for them.
According to the source, the buildings of the Taluka Hospital Umarkot badly needed repairs. The hospital had only one lady doctor. Umarkot had 34 sanctioned positions, of which 14 were vacant.
He said the students of midwifery, belonging to the Nursing School Mirpurkhas, had not been paid stipend for the last six months. Most of them came from poor families.
Most nurses of the area had not been paid salaries since the last couple of months. The source said buildings of the Civil Hospital Mirpurkhas needed repairs.
He disclosed that the hospital’s dialysis machines — one bought in 1988 and the other in 1992 — had never been switched on. The two machines were bought at a combined cost of Rs10 million.
Speaking about the Shikarpur District, he said some 800 sanctioned posts remained vacant there. This was despite the fact that the area had several thousand unemployed doctors and paramedical staff.
The lady health visitors of the district had not been paid their salaries since the last six months.
Similarly, some 700 people had been interviewed for the posts of vaccinators about seven months ago but not a single appointment had yet been made, according to the source.
Tharparkar District had 238 sanctioned posts, he said. But about 50 per cent of the positions remained vacant. Most of the filled positions belonged to the town of Mithi. It follows then that Diplo, Chhachhro and Nangarparkar had to do without qualified staff.
A government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said under the devolution plan decisions regarding appointment of staff of grade 17 and below were supposed to be taken by the district governments. “However, these decisions are still being taken at the provincial level.
“A question which must be put to the high and mighty of this country is: Why isn’t the devolution plan being implemented properly and in full?” He was of the view that if people were appointed on a contract basis, and by the district governments, some of the management problems could be resolved.”
The district governments were likely to better monitor the performance of the people appointed. The official said appointments should be healthcare unit-specific.
“By that I mean that the appointment should be made for a particular healthcare centre in the area falling in the jurisdiction of a specific district government.”
Turning to the issue of lack in certain areas of specialists, he commented that people living in cities often managed to get hold of seats reserved in medical colleges for students from the rural areas.
“Once they graduate, these people never ever think of serving the rural areas in the name of which they had been awarded seats.”
He added that some people genuinely belonging to rural areas too were reluctant to go back to the areas from where they had come originally.
