SHANGLA: The health facilities in upper parts of the Shangla district are short of equipment, staff and medicines.

In most cases, critical patients, particularly women having labour pain, die while being shifted to hospitals in urban areas, the residents complained.

Shangla comprises mostly mountainous areas with almost 80 per cent of the people living in hilly areas in abject poverty. Most male members of the families are employed as coal miners in different parts of the country.

The district has currently 36 health facilities, including the district headquarters hospital, Alpuri, and two tehsil headquarters hospitals in Bisham and Puran.

Sources in the health department told Dawn that for the primary healthcare the district had two rural health centres, 19 basic health units and 12 civil dispensaries. They said according to the WHO guidelines BHCs must be equipped with required equipment, facilities and must be nearby the population. However, they said besides their inaccessible locations, the health facilities were short of equipment and staff.

Mountainous district has two women doctors only

Miankallay village having a population of 30,000 people has a lone civil dispensary but it is far from the populated area and has also been facing shortage of staff and medicines for last six years.

The sources said there were only two lady doctors across the district, one serving at the DHQ hospital Alpuri and the other at THQ hospital, Puran, and the rest of the hospitals were on the mercy of lady health visitors.

Niaz Badshah, who is physically-challenged, said his three-year-old son was suffering from kidney illness, while his wife died a year ago owing to lack of a healthcare facility in Pir Abad union council.

Residents of Miankallay complained that they had to pay Rs2,000 to hire a vehicle whenever a patient was to be referred to the DHQ hospital located at a distance of 18 kilometres away.

The sources said the government did not provide funds directly to the primary and secondary healthcare facilities as the management of the main hospitals submitted their requirements to the district health officer for provision of medicines and equipment.

Abdullah, a social activist in Ghorband, said he had to pay Rs2,000 to hire a jeep for shifting a patient to the main hospital in Alpuri because the local dispensary did not deal with childbirth cases.

The sources claimed that 95 per cent of the health facilities had been facing acute water shortage.

They said labour rooms in almost all health facilities were non-functional. They said the hospitals were also short of lifesaving medicines due to non-provision of funds by the government.

The sources also revealed that around 200 technical staff posts were lying vacant in the main hospitals.

Kishawar Khan, a resident of Kotkay Alpuri, told Dawn that a dispensary in their area had long been non-functional due to shortage of staff and medicines.

Zubaida Bibi, a resident of Losar village, said gave birth to a child while being taken to hospital as the village has no health facility.

The residents complained that basic health units in various villages had been constructed away from the population.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2020