Baby-friendly hospitals in K-P hit snags

A project to set up baby-friendly hospitals in the province have been put on the backburner owing to a shortage of funds, it has been learnt.

Sources told The Express Tribune that paperwork for the project had been drafted around 18 months ago but the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government had yet to take any concrete steps to realise it.

Under the project, the government has prepared special protocols for treating mothers and children in public hospitals.

The government planned to provide women patients and female medical workers with facilities for breast-feeding their children while they will be able to spend some time with their children as well.

As a pilot project, the government had decided to grant two healthcare facilities baby-friendly status including to the Maulvi Ameer Shah Memorial in Peshawar and the Charsadda District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ).

If successful, the project will be extended to other public hospitals of the province as well.

The provincial government had even approached some international organisations to train medical staff in the gynaecology wards of these hospitals.

Despite receiving a green signal from these organisations, the project could not take off, sources said.

They added that for the moment, the government has chosen to continue with some other projects of the health sector.

It added that the health department had launched a similar project at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), however, it ground to a halt after its prime sponsor, the UNICEF, stopped funding it.

The health department did not make efforts to continue running the project on its own, the sources said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2020.