Vaccination hampered by LHWs’strike

They were assigned 40% catchment area in each union council

PESHAWAR:

The door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination drive in five districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has been badly impacted due to the strike call by lady health workers (LHW).

Lady health workers are demanding a service structure and in most union councils of Peshawar district, they refused to take part in the vaccination campaign due to the strike. Same is the situation in other districts, where lady health workers refused to work until their demands are accepted. This has badly disrupted the vaccination process, forcing the health department to use vaccinators and EPI technicians instead to fill the gap on emergency basis.

Talking to The Express Tribune an official of the K-P Health Department said that due to this problem, the number of fixed vaccination centers have been increased and vaccinators and EPI Technicians have been assigned the Covid vaccination duty too in addition to their own vaccination job.

It is worth mentioning here that the government had announced the launch of an aggressive door to door vaccination drive from Thursday in five districts of the province including Peshawar, Mardan, Swat, Mansehra and Abbotabad. This will continue till August 10.

In this regard, 648 lady health workers had been assigned the task in Peshawar district alone. These lady health workers have to cover around 40 percent catchment area in each union council.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2021.