Keeping a close watch: IMU to monitor, irregularities at public hospitals

IMU Surveillance staff to record and send data to senior officials in real time.

PESHAWAR: The Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) has launched a surveillance system to keep an eye on public health care facilities and their staff. There would be 175 personnel deployed as surveillance monitors with seven looking over the affairs of each district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Provincial health minister Shahram Tarakai said on Monday the monitors would report on the availability of services and medicines. In addition, these officials would inspect the condition of equipment and oversee the attendance of staff at state-run health facilities, he added.

Tarakai was speaking at a programme called Access to Service Availability of Staff and Improving Quality Services. Motorcycles were distributed among the monitors at the health secretariat. He said women monitors would be given transport allowance.



The IMU was established by the government to regularly evaluate the performance of public sector health care facilities.

“IMU officials would be recording videos with messages from patients and all others visiting public hospitals.” The minister added the provincial government was not only facilitating the general public, but also kept a close on eye on whether the masses were benefiting from the health care system. He added the monitoring of facilities was essential to reduce shortcomings and improve the condition of health care. Tarakai said action would be taken against any negligence, adding the main objective of this exercise was to bring positive changes to the health sector.

Real-time data collection

Health Secretary Mushtaq Jadoon said 175 monitors were selected through the National Testing Service. He added the data collected by these officials would be tabulated on a monthly basis and shared with the media.

The surveillance services, according to Jadoon, will operate through a dashboard system in which data from anywhere in the province would be displayed to senior officials. The secretary said the monitors would have software installed on their cell phones which would allow them to send data in real time to the project management unit.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2015.