Inspect health facilities regularly: Ombudsman

Advisers say complaints are about mismanagement

LAHORE: Punjab Ombudsman Javaid Mehmood has directed his district advisers to regularly visit health facilities in their districts and submit reports on their condition to the ombudsman’s office.

The directive was issued at a training session for all 36 district advisers on Sunday.

The advisers were asked to regularly visit district and tehsil headquarters (THQs and DHQs) hospitals, rural health centres (RHCs) and basic health units (BHUs).

The ombudsman said that each adviser was required to visit the DHQ hospitals in their areas once every two months and all THQ hospitals, four RHCs and eight BHUs once every month. He said the advisers should examine attendance record of medical staff and availability of medicines and other facilities. He said the advisers should submit to his office a report about their visits after every two months. The advisers were also asked to hold inquiries into complaints received from the public.

Earlier, some of the district advisers told the gathering that they had received several complaints about poor management at public health facilities in their areas. They said most complaints were about undue delay in registration of new-born babies at union council offices. They said provincial government was spending large sums of money in the health sector. It appeared that the benefits of the spending were not reaching the people, they added.

Chief Provincial Commissioner for Children Nasreen Farooq Ayub said the School Education Department (SED) would soon be contacted and asked to form a policy for provision of playgrounds at all schools in the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th,  2015.