Daily Times

LAHORE: A large numbers of basic health units (BHUs) providing emergency obstetric and gynaecological services have failed to deliver, putting the patients’ lives at stake.

Owing to acute deficiency of financial resources to buy new equipment, the standard level of treatment at primary healthcare institutes has dropped to such an extent that emergency lights were being used during operations.

In order to improve maternal, newborn and childcare services and reduce their morbidity and mortality in Punjab, 24/7 Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (EmONC) services were started in 2010 in 650 BHUs across the province and hundreds of millions of rupees were spent on upgradation of these BHUs.

However, it was revealed in a ‘stocktake’ meeting held on November 18 that 63 percent of 24/7 BHUs and 45 rural health centres (RHCs) were not functional according to knockdown criteria, including shortage of backup power, functional electricity, patients toilets, water supply, delivery lights, emergency, table, delivery tale and blood pressure apparatus.

Due to constant load shedding in the country, the provincial government had also bought uninterruptible power source (UPS) and batteries to ensure power supply to these BHUs.

However, some official documents available with Daily Times depict an alarming situation about the health facility in district Jhang, where UPS in 13 BHUs were not working for months, while 11 BHUs were facing malfunctioning of electric batteries.

An official, on condition of anonymity, said that backup power was absolutely necessary for all 24/7 BHUs in order to facilitate the patients in an efficient way. He deplored that the absence of backup power was preventing many patients from opting these facilities.

He said it has been noticed by many high officials of the health department that several districts lack the availability of backup power in both BHUs as well as rural health clinics (RHCs).

He said that it was clear that the Primary and Secondary Healthcare (P&SHC) Department denied providing funds for replacing, maintaining and repairing the equipment, adding that it was also decided that the repair and maintenance of power backup equipment at BHUs would be from the district budget.

He said after receiving these instructions from P&SHC Department, health officials concerned were writing letters for allocation of funds for repair and maintenance of equipment, but funds were not being provided due to unknown reasons.

Sources said that the chief minister had showed displeasure over poor performance of basic health units. The Punjab chief secretary has also directed all DCOs that a third-party audit of these facilities would be undertaken in current month and a report would be presented to the chief minister in the next review meeting.

When contacted, Punjab Integrated Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Health and Nutrition Programme (IRMNCH&P) Additional Director Dr AKhar Rashid said, “We have approved Rs 708 million to upgrade BHUs, and all issues would be rectified in upcoming days. He however, added that the BHUs were delivering very well and 55 deliveries were being conducted at each BHU per month.”