Daily Times

LAHORE: A large numbers of basic health units (BHUs) providing emergency obstetric and gynaecological services in remote areas were lacking functional electrical equipment needed during operations, 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 the selected BHUs of seven flood-affected districts, including DG Khan, Layyah, Muzafargarh, Rajanpur, Mianwali, Bhakkar and RY Khan.

The Punjab government, after the success of this initiative, had decided to implement the model all over the province in three phases. As per directions of the chief minister, as many as 150 BHUs were upgraded in 16 districts in 2013-14, while all 550 BHUs across the province were upgraded in 2014-15.

Due to constant load shedding of electricity 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.