PESHAWAR, April 1: Lack of funds, staff and mismanagement have badly affected the performance of Health Management Information System, officials told Dawn on Tuesday.

The Health Management Information System was launched in 1993 with the financial assistance of the USAID and Unicef, with a view to collect demographic data, regarding 18 diseases to enable the government make plans and strategies to cope with the situation.

Initially, it worked under the director-general health services and established its branches in all 24 districts of the province. It had a smooth sailing, but suffered a setback in 1996 when the donors — USAID and Unicef — stopped releasing funds and its activities came to a standstill, till it was relaunched and funded by Women Health Project in 1999. Later, some funds were also arranged from Social Action Programme the same year.

The Health Management Information System is responsible to collect data from various areas of the province regarding 18 ailments and to furnish the health department with the information regarding the healthcare situation.

During the year 2002, the Health Management Information System reported about 3.5 million cases of various diseases, including diarrhoea, dysentery, acute respiratory infection, malaria, cough, suspected cholera, measles, suspected meningococcal meningitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, goitre and suspected HIV/AIDS, from Malakand, Dera Ismail Khan, Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat and Hazara divisions.

The cases were reported only from the rural heath centres and basic health units, where according to Unicef, only 20 per cent people go for treatment and 80 per cent of the patients visit private care hospitals.

Furthermore, the Health Management Information System’s report also doesn’t include the number of patients, treated at the DHQs and tertiary care hospitals.

“The HMIS is of vital importance for complete and authentic reports regarding the prevalence of diseases and measures to save people from those ailments,” said a doctor. He said that owing inadequate staff and lack of funds, it was impossible for the health personnel to prepare correct data.

According to an official, the HMIS was provided computers, but without proper networking. He said that plans were made to link the computers through internet with all its branches but were not materialized.

An amount of Rs5.5 million was allocated for the HMIS by the Women Health Project, but was too little to meet the expenses.

The health personnel, who work in the different regions, had no register and monitoring system to conduct surveys. They just fill up a pro forma letter at the end of every month and send it to the health department, because the director general health, had been pressurizing them for the reports.

The officials claimed that the HMIS was without any printed materials, instruments and kits required for investigation since 1999. Nonetheless, the HMIS had conducted 80 workshops, where training was imparted to 35,000 health professionals.

The Health Management Information System, is now looked after by an assistant director, who is preoccupied with other responsibilities and has little time for its affairs. There are only two clerks, who are supposed to receive data from various regions and prepare a report.