PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government made the province a role model for the entire country by strengthening institutions, said MNA Shehryar Khan Afridi.

Addressing an advocacy seminar for health here on Tuesday, he said that provincial government had taken revolutionary steps and spent record amount for promotion of education and improvement in health sector.

Mr Afridi appreciated the Community Uplift Programme in district Charsadda and said that the organisation encouraged common people to raise their voice and demand their rights.

He said that if PTI won the next general elections, it would not only strengthen service delivery in health sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but in the entire country and would provide all basic health facilities to people at their doorsteps.

Speaking on the occasion, Col Iftikharur Rahman, the chief executive of Community Uplift Programme (CUP) Pakistan, presented a detailed overview of the concept and the objectives of the advocacy seminar for healthcare improvement within the framework of community score card methodology in Charsadda.

He said that objectives of the seminar was to influence policy level stakeholders, using available evidence for informed decision making to institutionalise ‘community score card’ model as a citizen-inclusive monitoring and planning method for the improvement in the quality of primary health services in Charsadda.

The meeting was attended by all stakeholders including MPAs from Charsadda, representative of independent monitoring unit, district members and chairman of health monitoring committee, Charsadda assistant commissioner and other health officials.

A resolution was tabled on behalf of 176 lead activists representing 98,363 users of primary healthcare in the catchment areas of 43 basic health units of Charsadda district that helped the health department to provide labour room there.

The resolution demanded notification of the seven “joint citizen monitoring committees” created as a body to oversee and implement the agreed action plans resulting from the community score card process.

The resolution said that “community score card” method should be adopted for other services such as education and should be replicated as regular process in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2017