MANSEHRA: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was urged on Saturday by the people of Torghar area to build a healthcare infrastructure that would enable the locals to receive basic medical care.

“Our district has no healthcare infrastructure at all, which is hard to comprehend but true. At the local basic health units (BHUs), nine of the 10 doctor positions are vacant,” a resident named Shahnawaz Khan told reporters in the Dor Mera area.

He said, “The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department has not appointed a single female doctor throughout the district, so in some cases, women die on the way to hospitals in Hazara division due to complicated labour.”

Residents had spoken with the lawmakers and senior Health Department officials, he said, but to no avail.“This former tribal area was given the status of a settled district through a presidential order in 2011, but locals are still without healthcare services,” Mr Khan said.

According to him, the Rs1 billion project was remained on hold even though the District Headquarters (DHQ) hospital’s construction was started in 2016. A group of locals, led by Mr Khan threatened to take to the streets in protest against the non-availability of healthcare services.

District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Mudassar explained when contacted that although the entire population of the area relied on basic health units for medical care, the majority of them lacked doctors.

Just 50 per cent of the building work on DHQ hospital had been completed thus far, the DHO noted, despite the fact that the amount of money required to complete the hospital was recently raised from Rs500 million to Rs1 billion.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2024