PESHAWAR: The district health officers of Battagram and Torghar have complained against what they call selection of irrelevant people for training in Japan on maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH).

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is implementing a project in three districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Battagram, Torghar and Mansehra. JICA had asked the directorate-general health services (DGHS) to send nominations for 10-day training starting in Japan on October 1.

However, the director general health services nominated more people from his office and ignored the district health officers of Torghar and Battagram, according to sources. The district health officers of Torghar and Battagram lodged a formal complaint with health secretary, asking him to probe the matter and save the funds provided by Japan for promotion of MNCH from going to dustbin and ensure nomination of right people.

Health Secretary Mahmood Aslam Wazir told Dawn that he received a complaint from Torghar DHO. He said that he was looking into the matter. He said that he would ensure that right people got the training for the sake of improvement of MNCH indicators in the target districts.

Health secretary says he is looking into the matter

Sources said that the course was basically a management training relevant to primary healthcare and not related to clinical training due to which the two DHOs should have been made part of it.

Torghar DHO Dr Jamil Ahmad in his letter to the health secretary said that JICA was working in three districts including Battagram, Torghar and Mansehra of Hazara division to improve poor MNCH indicators.

In his complaint titled “irrelevant selection for MNCH training in Japan from October 1 to 10”, he stated that in the initial meetings it was decided by all the stakeholders that district implementing managers, such as DHOs and EPI coordinators of the selected districts would receive training to implement the programme in their respective areas.

However, after that without taking in confidence the DHOs, JICA selected some blue-eyed irrelevant people for the same purpose to get training In Japan, he said.

He said in the complaint that the matter was kept hidden by JICA from DHOs, therefore it was humbly requested that the injustice might be probed to prevent the JICA fund from being misused. The funds, according to DHO, have been provided by the donor for helping and improvement of MNCH indicators in the selected districts.

Battagram DHO has also sent complaint to country head of JICA wherein he had shown his displeasure over selection of ‘irrelevant’ people for the training.

Sources said that JICA had requested six nominations from the districts and four from the DGHS office but later 13 nominations were sent that were accepted and no-objection certificates were issued to them for visa purpose. “The complaints made by the DHOs are valid because they are the most relevant people to receive the training and later implement the project,” they added.

These trainings are usually not for clinicians rather for public health experts and mostly focus on programme planning, scale up, community-based approaches, monitoring and evaluation etc.

“The issue is sensitive because DHOs should have been made part of the training as they have to lead the project in districts where mortality regarding newborns is extremely high,” said sources.

According to them, the funds provided by donors should be utilised for the benefits of the people not for visits of irrelevant officials. Selection of DGHS officials for training was not against the criteria but ignoring the DHOs was sheer discrimination, they said.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2023