K-P tackles infant mortality, plans to open 3 health units next month

Care centres to help reduce burden on major hospitals.

In an effort to reduce infant mortality rate in the province, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government is opening three newborn care units next month at the Batkhela, Swat and DI Khan district headquarters hospitals.

These care units will help reduce the burden on major hospitals in Peshawar and provide health services in districts. The province already lacks trained nurses and doctors, in addition to proper health units.

“We are giving week-long training to nurses and doctors of Batkhela and Swat, while the DI Khan staff will be trained from next week. These units will be fully functional by next month,” Khyber Institute of Child Health Dean Dr Gohar Rehman told The Express Tribune.

There are only four newborn care centres at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Abbottabad Medical Complex. They receive a large number of patients from across the province.

Around 200 staff members, including 24 nurses, have been given basic training in handling paediatrics diseases at the units, which are funded by the Unicef, Dr Rehman added.

“Different wards have been established at these units, which deal with jaundice, breastfeeding, and infectious diseases among others,” he said, adding “specialised departments will help decrease the mortality rate in infants.”  The government will also appoint one district neonatologist.

Dr Zai Dirvi, a paediatrician at LRH, said that this is a good initiative by the government to provide treatment facilities to patients from distant areas. In many instances, children die on the way to hospital, he said.

“We are not allowed to hospitalise more than 15 children in the care unit at LRH but we have admitted up to 30 children due to the large number of patients, and that brings down the quality of treatment,” Dr Dirvi said.

Diseases like jaundice and hyperaemia need immediate treatment. Mortality rate is high because children are not immediately treated after contracting such diseases.

The current infant mortality rate in Pakistan is 76 out of 1000 children, while 41 children die within the first month of their birth, Dr Rehman said. There are no statistics for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2012.