LARKANA: The Sindh Government has finally decided to take back 111 Rural Health Centers and Taluka Headquarter Hospitals outsourced to Integrated Health Services (IHS) in 2016.
In this connection, the Director General, Health Services (SGHS), Sindh, Hyderabad, has directed District Health Officers (DHOs) of 20 districts of the province to take over health facilities from IHS. These DHOs have also been directed to depute a team of at least two senior officers not below the rank of BPS-19 to visit all government health facilities in their respective districts. They will prepare details of assets and submit to the DG office within five days through respective DHOs. This was confirmed by DGHS while talking with this Scribe on Sunday.
These districts include Hyderabad, Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Dadu, Jamshoro, Mirpurkhas, Tharparkar, Umarkot, Shaheed Benazirabad (Nawabshah), Naushehro Feroze, Sanghar, Sukkur, Khairpur, Larkana, Shikarpur, Jacobabad, Kashmore and Kambar-Shahdadkot.
These health facilities were outsources to IHS under Public-Private Partnership for better management so that poor patients should not suffer but the poverty-stricken ailing people continued to face hardships and IHS failed to either properly manage or to improve the health care services despite enjoying billions of taxpayer’s hard earned money annually and provision of all the relevant doctors and paramedics who were drawing Health Department salaries. IHS also recruited its untrained people and according to complaints they mostly misbehaved with the visitors and manhandled them over petty issues and they also received late salaries without annual increments and other benefits as enjoyed by regular government servants.
Specialist cadre and post-graduate doctors were not employed to fulfill the requirements due to which indisposed persons had to run from one facility to another for proper diagnosis of their diseases. Medicines, equipment and instruments and diagnostic facilities were lacking and outdated machines were not replaced. Retired doctors were employed against lucrative salaries for OPD work but drugs were procured by the starved patients who were already facing massive price-hikes. As per reports, operation theaters remained mostly closed and emergency services were denied.
As many as 21 Rural Health Centers (RHCs) of the entire Larkana Division were handed over to IHS in 2016 but none of them worked professionally. Meanwhile, Dr. Rafiq-ul-Hassan Khokhar, General Secretary, Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Sindh, in a statement on Saturday, highly appreciated and welcomed the decision of the Sindh Government to take back the possession of Health Care facilities outsourced to IHS.
He said since many years PMA has been demanding the same including health facilities given to PPHI because “these organizations completely failed to deliver proper health care facilities to the patients”, adding “rather they have given a mega financial loss to Government of Sindh”, the statement added. He demanded to take over all leftover health care facilities including those given to PPHI immediately and their employees be merged in the Health Department. However, “the Health Department also needs cleanup operation and needs updated improvement”, the statement concluded.
Dr. Muhammad Sharif Pirzado, Medical Superintendent (MS), 100-Bed Government Hospital, Naundero, said that we fully support government decision of taking back all the health facilities outsourced to IHS because it stood banned in KPK. He said no orthopedic, eye, ENT surgeons were provided and gynecology, pediatrician and other essential post-graduate doctors facilities were denied to the people of Naundero to mention a few.
He said IHS could not even establish paeds ward despite availability of beds and casualty is working without air-conditioners in this hot weather. He said drugs from multinational companies were not supplied. He said Sindh Government should now properly manage these health facilities to reduce rush at Teaching Hospitals for which DDO powers should be given to the MSs along with required annual budget so that poor patients could be given better service.