PESHAWAR, Aug 27: Non-existence of service structure for its employees is adversely affecting the performance of the cold chain facilities of the health department’s Expanded Programme of Immunisation, it is learnt.

According to them, there have been many cases of vaccine expiry in the province. Such cases were reported despite vaccination against polio and other preventable diseases.

Employees said the problem was that they at cold chain storages didn’t have service structure which hampered their performance, sources added.

Majority of the cold chain storage employees have reached close to the age of retirement and they fear that they will retire from services despite working in the cold chain storages for more than 30 years, they said.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department launched the Expanded Programme of Immunisation as project in 1976 but it was converted into a regular programme in 1980 with a view to apply brakes on the immunisable childhood ailments, they added.

The 25 employees working in the cold chain system, included one supervisor of basic pay scale-12, six technicians in BPS-11, one store keeper in BPS-9, six mechanics in BPS-8 and 17 operators in BPS-5 had been appointed in the same grades 20 to 30 years ago but there is no chance of their promotion to next grades due to lack of service structure.

Employees say most of them have been working overtime due to shortage of staff but the new appointments haven’t been made despite repeated requests to the government.

In the process, they said cold chain had been affected and the cases of expiry and ineffectiveness of the vaccines had been recorded.

They also said many children, who were diagnosed with poliomyelitis, had received the oral polio vaccines and thus creating suspicions in the minds of the people.

According to employees, posts of technicians and operators have been lying vacant in Mansehra, Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand and Peshawar.

An official at the directorate of health told Dawn that for two years, the matter of the service structure of the cold chain employees had been shuttling between directorate and the health secretariat. He said there had been several observations by the finance department in regularisation of their services.

He said employees had been recruited as project employees when EPI was launched as project but when it was made a regular programme, all employees except those working in cold chains were regularised.

Some two year ago, when the health department took notice of absence of their service structure, it was that there were no service rules for them due to which they could not be promoted, he said.

“Now, we have framed proper service rules for them after the approval of which they would get promoted to next grades,” he said.

He said the higher authorities were responsible for the problems of these employees as they had failed to frame their service rules when EPI was made a regular department.

The official said the said employees wanted to file a case in the court for rights but were waiting for the outcome of the efforts started by the health department in this respect.