PESHAWAR, July 19: The NWFP Governor Iftikhar Hussain Shah has asked the director health services Fata to ensure continuation of institution-based practice (IBP) at the health facilities.

“Despite the elimination of the IBP in the provincial health facilities, it is still going on in Fata, because the governor is keenly interested in keeping the system going,” said an official at the directorate of health, Fata.

According to him, the IBP had been launched in Fata and the settled areas of the province simultaneously, but the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government, after coming into power, scrapped the system.

The official said the health directorate of Fata had earned Rs4.8m since launching the IBP in April last year. He said the facilities at the seven agency headquarters hospitals in Fata had showed great improvement, because the money generated through this system was being spent on the upgradation of facilities.

The official said there were a total of 554 health-care outlets in Fata that included rural health centres, basic health units and dispensaries. Efforts were being made to start the IBP at these facilities also.

“We are issuing reminders to the doctors in Fata from time to time, so that they could not get relaxed, because the system had been eliminated in the NWFP,” said the official, adding that it would be strengthened further, because the patients wanted this system.

The governor, who was the moving spirit behind the launching of the IBP in the NWFP, has on several occasions shown his displeasure over the MMA-led government’s decision to do away with the IBP.

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