CHARSADDA
An advocacy seminar on improving primary healthcare services in Charsadda held here the other day was informed that there were no labor rooms in the 43 basic health units across the district.
The seminar was held under the DFID-funded and Palladium Pakistan-managed project ‘Community Score Card’ (CSC).
Lawmakers, additional DG health, chairman health monitoring committee, media persons, representatives of NGOs, local bodies and Independent Monitoring Unit of the provincial health department were in attendance.
It is to mention here that Community Uplift Programme Pakistan (CUP), an NGO working in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2001, has been implementing the project in Charsadda district since April 2016 to improve quality of primary healthcare services through CSC method. The NGO has trained a number of lead activists to give feedback on the users of the healthcare services in the district.
Col Iftikhar-ur-Rahman, chief executive of CUP, presented an overview of the concept and objectives of advocacy seminar for healthcare improvement within the framework of CSC methodology.
The purpose of advocacy seminar, he said, was to influence key policy level stakeholders and use available evidence for informed decision making to institutionalize CSC model. A citizen-inclusive monitoring and planning method is vital for improving the quality of primary healthcare services in the district, he maintained.
On the occasion, the lead activists representing 93,800 users of primary healthcare in the catchment areas of 43 BHUs informed the participants that there were no labor rooms in BHUs, and sought preparation of PC-1 for construction of the facilities for safe deliveries. They also called for induction of LHWs where gaps existed.
MPA Bakht Baidar Khan called for institutionalizing and replicating the CSC model in other districts.
MPA Sultan Khan, who was the chief guest, said it was encouraging to see that the CSC project not only fully complemented the citizens’ healthcare initiatives of the government but was also helping in getting citizens feedback on quality of healthcare services.
