LAHORE: On finding health indicators alarmingly dismal and enormous increase in prevalence of diseases, the Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD) has given a go-ahead to bring all vertical programmes under a “centralised communication system.”

The vertical programmes are those that deal with specific health conditions rather than general services.

The decision has been taken to end ‘solo working style’ of the programmes which have been functioning under various authorities but fail to achieve targets/goals in Punjab.

A crucial meeting was called here on Wednesday to decide the future of the vertical programmes. Headed by P&SHD Secretary Mohammad Usman, the meeting evaluated the performance of the project directors who were also present there besides special secretary Ajmal Bhatti.

The health department finally decided to shift its approach from curative to preventive side to improve the situation.

For the first time the department established a centralised communication system and in future heads of the vertical programmes would directly report to the health secretary only.

The programmes include Hepatitis Control Program, AIDS Control Program, Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI), TB Control Program, IRMNCH, Infection Control Program and Non-Communicable Disease (NCD).

“Although the management structure and reporting channel will remain the same, the strategic planning, communication plan and performance evaluation would be centralised under the secretary health,” said Mr Usman.

He told Dawn that he reviewed work performance of each vertical programme in a series of meetings during the last three months or so. It was matter of serious concern that during performance evaluation, the department found out that no programme was able to justify its performance because all of these were working in isolation, resulting in wastage of resources and poor performance.

Every programme was working in isolation and there was no ideal coordination, he said, adding that this had resulted in almost failure of targets/goals set by the international health organisations to curtail disease burden.

“In the absence of a centralised policy, effectiveness of these programmes has suffered badly, resulting in increased number of patients,” he said.

Previously, every programme had been using LHWs (lady health workers), SH&NS (school health & nutrition supervisors) for mass awareness, giving them different campaigns without any proper training and accountability.

“Wednesday’s meeting abolished this policy and made mandatory an integrated campaign,” said Mr Usman. He said the LHWs and SH&NS were being given proper training and feedback mechanism to effectively carry out preventive activities.

In line with the global practice, the department has shifted approach from curative to preventive side being the only way out to achieve health indicators, safeguard health of people and provide them with better facilities.

“The preventive health has been prime focus all over the world while we have been spending a major chunk of health budget on curative side,” he said.

The meeting set future targets for the vertical programmes to reduce disease burden in Punjab.

Special Secretary Muhammad Ajmal Bhatti has been tasked with finalising the centralised policy for all vertical programmes.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2020