PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is unable to pay arrears to the lady health workers after regularisation of their services owing to the centre’s reluctance to provide funds according to the commitment it made in 2010, say sources.

“The federal government is required to pay Rs2.211 billion to the province in lieu of arrears to the LHWs. The province has been asking the centre for the amount to be paid to the LHWs, who are observing strikes now and then,” said relevant officials.

They said that in 1994, the LHWs programme was launched in the country to strengthen family planning and immunisation services in all provinces.

Under the programme, 110,000 LHWs were appointed throughout the country for which federal government provided salaries but after the passage of 18th Amendment in 2010, it was devolved to the provinces. However, the federal government promised that it would provide funds for it till 2017 after which the provinces would be responsible to finance the programme.

Centre had promised in 2010 to provide funds for programme

“KP has 13,169 LHWs. It is the only province, which has regularised the services of LHWs in the fulfillment of the Supreme Court’s directives in 2013,” said officials.

The provinces had been asked to make their services permanent from July 1, 2012.

Prior to this, all provinces including KP were paying Rs8,000 per month to LHWs as salary. Following the court’s decision, KP regularised LHWs in BPS-5. Now the province needs Rs2.411 billion to pay arrears to them for which it looks towards the federal government.

“The KP government has requested the centre to include the issue in the next meeting of the Council of Common Interest to end the prevalent unrest among the LHWs. They are very important for the healthcare system and government wants to pay them the outstanding amount as soon as possible,” said officials.

They said that they had sent several reminders to the federal government about the amount to be paid to LHWs but all such requests had fallen on deaf ears.

Officials said that health department had informed the centre that it had recorded improvement in the health indicators in the areas covered by LHWs so it was eager to give those incentives to them for further improvement.

“We have deployed them for vaccination in areas where male workers can’t perform duty. People are accepting female staff because they can interact with people inside home,” they said.

Besides LHWs, other employees of the programme such as clerks, accountants and drivers also needed to be paid the remaining amount after regularisation of their services.

Meanwhile, the health department has asked the provincial government to make arrangements for provision of salaries to the staffers of the programme.

However, the government is unable to provide the amount to the programme and is solely relying on the federal money to pay them.

“Now, we are facing problems owing to protests by the staff. In many areas, we have deployed them for vaccination of children and mothers. We have achieved tangible results but now they are protesting owing to which their healthcare activities can’t be carried out smoothly,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2018