QUETTA: The Balochistan government has regularised services of 7,265 lady health workers (LHW) who had been waiting for the confirmation of their jobs for the past 21 years.

This was announced by Health Minister Rehmat Saleh Baloch at a ceremony jointly organised on Saturday by the government and Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation, to give awards to lady health workers.

The minister said: “The chief minister has approved the summery that I had moved for regularisation of lady health workers’ services.”

He showed to the audience a copy of the official order for the regularisation of LHWs’ services.

Saleh Baloch said government was aware of the difficulties faced by lady health workers and community midwives and recognised their efforts for helping mothers and children in need of urgent medical attention.

He said the provincial government was committed to improving the standard of public health facilities.

Balochistan Assembly’s member and National Party leader Dr Shama Ishaq said that a mafia of private hospitals in Quetta was affecting the performance of doctors in public sector hospitals. But, she added, all doctors in public hospitals were not involved in corrupt practices and there were many who performed their duty honestly.

Dr Mohammad Irshad Danish, representative of Save the Children programme in Pakistan, spoke about the challenges the lady health workers and community midwives were facing in Pakistan.

He said the Save the Children’s EVERY ONE campaign focused on reducing child and mother mortality and that it had provided a platform to appreciate services being rendered by lady health workers and community midwives, especially those working in remote areas of the province.

Provincial Health Secretary Abdul Saboor Kakar and Dr Noor Qazi also spoke.