MANSEHRA: The provincial government has closed down four basic health units and two mobile outreach health service units in Mansehra district.

People fear the closure of health facilities created in remote areas of Shergar, Jarad, Gandian and Kotli Balla to curtail maternal and infant mortality rates will have negative bearing on local healthcare system.

They told Dawn the BHUs used to remain functional round the clock to offer not only pre- and postnatal care to women but also laboratory tests free of charge.

Currently, around 50 BHUs operate in the district from 8am to 2pm forcing patients, including pregnant women and infants, to visit rural health centres and tehsil and district headquarters hospitals at other times of the day.

The sources said 20 posts of doctors had long been lying vacant at BHUs in the district and thus, adversely affecting healthcare in remote parts of district.

They said only 15 of those BHUs had female doctors to the misery of pregnant women, who were indisposed to get themselves examined by male doctors by and large.

“We fear little higher maternal and infant mortality rates in the district after the closure of four BHUs and two mobile outreach units,” PPHI district manager Waheed Sultan Khan told Dawn.

The manager regretted that 10 of the 50 BHUs had been established in tents and makeshift shelters since the destruction of own buildings in the 2005 earthquake.

He said the PPHI, which had taken over BHUs in the district in 2011 were struggling to cope with the situation.

Mr. Waheed complained the government paid Rs72,000 monthly health professional allowance to the doctors working in government hospitals but had stopped that payment to the doctors appointed by the PPHI to BHUs in the district.

He asked how a doctor, who could earn Rs72,000 health professional allowance every month along with salary by serving in a public sector hospital, would join BHUs for mere Rs41,000 fixed monthly salary in remote parts of the district.

The manager warned the ‘double standard’ of the government could adversely impact on healthcare in the district.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2016