PESHAWAR, Jan 22: Scores of employees of the health department of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas receive salaries without reporting for job, hence, affecting the healthcare delivery system, sources said. “Dozens of doctors, dispensers, technicians and nurses are not performing duties but getting salaries. This practice has been going on for long and several officials are involved in the scam,” said a health department official.

As a result, he added, the people of Fata suffered as they faced problems in getting medical facilities in the healthcare centres.

Spread over 6,619 square kilometres, Fata has 800 health centres with the services of 5,000 doctors, 2,500 paramedics and 200 nurses and lady health visitors for a population of 3.5 million.

“We have not received any complaint about absenteeism of staff in any tribal agency, because the local in-charges (of the healthcare units) are afraid to disclose it to us,” said an official at the Fata heath directorate.

He said that the government had appointed gynaecologists, surgeons, physicians, psychiatrists and ENT, skin and eye specialists in the area but 50 per cent of them did not perform their duties.

Sources at one of the tribal agency headquarters hospitals said that they had not seen the eye specialist appointed there over the past three months but the attendance register showed him being present during this period.

They said that the doctors and health workers were hand in glove with the clerks and accountants, who marked them as present and issued them salaries.

They said that the clerks and accountants received half salaries from the absentee staff.

They said that some of the absentee doctors and paramedics worked with NGOs.

Sources said that in the bleak scenario, the local population had developed a habit of not visiting hospitals and, instead, they take their ailing relatives to Peshawar to seek treatment even for their minor ailments.

According to sources, the war on terrorism in Fata has also badly affected the healthcare delivery network.

“Doctors and health workers in South and North Waziristan agencies are either getting themselves transferred to peaceful places or paying officials for marking them present even if they are not coming,” said a source.

Except Orakzai Agency, the rest of the six tribal units are located on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border due to which the health workers feel threatened in the face of war on terrorism.

A source said that some of the doctors and paramedics had received injuries in incidents related to the ongoing war against militants in the tribal agencies.

He added that sometime ago the government had launched a campaign against doctors who were not performing their duties for the last several years, but later the campaign was stopped because of involvement of high ranking officials in the racket.