KARACHI: Representatives of lady health workers (LHWs) on Friday warned that they would hold protests across the province, if the government did not withdraw the 75 per cent cut in the operational budget of the LHW programme and enhance its financial support.

Speaking at a press conference here at the Karachi Press Club, representatives of the All Lady Health Workers Programme Union (ALHWPU) said the first such demonstration would be held in Karachi next week.

Describing the budget cut as an attempt to end the LHW programme, ALHWPU Chairperson Bushra Arian, accompanied by her colleagues, said that it’s tragic that the Pakistan Peoples Party was bent upon closing a programme initiated by its leader late Benazir Bhutto over three decades back.

“We won’t let this happen. It’s not another government programme but rather Shaheed Benazir Bhutto’s vision that, for the first time in the country’s history, led to bringing healthcare services at the doorstep of the masses,” she said, pledging that LHWs would not let her dream die and would fight till the end.

PPP govt accused of attempting to close down an initiative launched by slain former PM Benazir Bhutto

Highlighting workers’ grievances, she said that the government in the first stage made a 75pc cut in the LHW programme’s budget and then transferred the funds to a private company.

“The funds are transferred to a company whose [governing] board hasn’t been formed yet. As a result of the budgetary cut, lady health workers are now without basic health kits and medicines and supervisors without fuel. The task of administrative supervision has been paralysed and the remaining financial resources are hardly enough to pay workers their salaries,” she added.

Ironically, she pointed out, the historical name of the lady health workers’ programme had also been taken out from the budget document.

“The government is taking such steps — including changes in the organogram — which indicates that the programme is being gradually outsourced or privatised,” Ms Arian said.

All these steps, she said, violated the Supreme Court’s 2013 order under which over 105,000 LHWs were regularised across the province, as well as government promises made last year following their sit-ins.

“We want to clearly state that if this programme’s identity, structure and budget ended, the worst sufferers would not just the employees but also Sindh’s poor masses,” Ms Arian observed, regretting that the services of lady health workers were never been truly appreciated by the provincial government, though they performed their duties with utmost diligence.

“We are always on the field doing whatever we are asked to do. Be it delivery of basic maternal-child healthcare, polio vaccination, counselling on family planning or nutrition. We are called in emergency situations such as floods and perform our duties in far flung high risk areas,” she said.

Unlike Punjab where LHWs were given Grade 16 jobs, the lady health workers in Sindh were deprived of upgradation and promotion, a violation of the programme’s structure as envisioned over three decades back at the time of its conception.

“Our total strength has been reduced from over 24,000 to 17,000 plus in Sindh as no appointments have been made for many years. [Around] 60pc of the area of the province currently is without any lady health worker,” she said.

Activists Farhat Parveen and Mirza Maqsood also spoke.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2026