KARACHI, July 6: It has officially been announced that the Sindh health department will shortly post five regional officers across the province to monitor the execution of various health projects and healthcare facilities operating at the local level.

Sources have told Dawn that the aim is to reduce the load on the Sindh director-general health as well as provide support to the executive district officers (health), who find it difficult to divide their attention between the administrative and healthcare delivery aspects of their work.

The regional directors will be stationed in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukker, Larkana and Mirpurkhas, and will between them cover the entire province.

Meanwhile, the Sindh health minister Syed Sardar Ahmed met with World Bank representative Shahnaz Qazi on Friday. He confirmed that the appointment of the five regional directors was part of the effective monitoring and implementation of 16 ongoing health projects set up across the province with the support of international donors.

The minister said that the directors would play an important role in providing health facilities and medicines in both rural and urban areas. Noting that political influence affected the healthcare facilities available to poor and middle-income groups in remote areas, Mr Ahmed emphasised the need to establish committees at the local level to voluntarily monitor health units in their areas.

Ms Qazi was given details about various measures taken by the Sindh health department to improve the situation across the province, including rural incentive allowances to encourage doctors and paramedics working in the rural areas. The minister said that the government has started a public-private partnership project for remote areas, through which 10 basic health units are being run in collaboration with the Sindh Rural Health Organisation. He added that in the 2007-08 budget, substantial funds have been allocated for a hundred hospitals, including 60 in Karachi, which are currently non-functional because of the lack of staff, medicines and equipment.