FAFEN report: TB health centres lack equipment, facilities
The centres in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) present the worst scenario when compared to the centres in Punjab and Sindh, said the report prepared by the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen).
Fafen monitored 62 out of 293 tuberculosis health centres across Pakistan during October to prepare its report. Of these, Fafen monitored 17 centres in 13 districts of Sindh, 21 centres in 15 districts of Punjab, 20 centres in 17 districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and four centres in Balochistan.
While medicines in about 90 per cent of the centres were available free-of-charge, many of them lacked severely in basic facilities needed to function properly (see accompany graphics).
The report also mentions that visits by elected representatives to these centres were “rare”. Of all the centres monitored, just one centre in Sindh was visited by a member of national assembly during October.
Eighteen out of the 62 centres did not provide information about sanctioned posts for doctors and paramedic staff. Among those that did provide information, 92 posts of doctors were sanctioned, of which 86 were filled.
There are no sanctioned posts for female doctors in Balochistan, said the report. Similarly there were no sanctioned posts for nurses in Balochistan, while 39 per cent of spots for nurses in Punjab were vacant.
Patients were mostly satisfied with the staff at TB health centres that were observed. However there were issues with free-of-charge medicine being unavailable at 8 per cent of the centres monitored.
Dr Noor Ahmad Baloch, manager for the National TB control Programme, told The Express Tribune that provincial governments were responsible for monitoring the working conditions of TB health centres.
“On the federal level we only give directives and training to the staff in case there is a shortage,” said Baloch.
He also expressed his concerns over the outdated statistics present with the government of TB patients in the country.
“The last survey was conducted by the government to find out the number of TB patients in the country was in 1981. No survey was carried out after that,” he said. So all studies and projects in Pakistan TB depend on statistics provided by the World Health Organization.
According to these statistics, Dr Baloch said, 0.3 million people are infected with TB every year in Pakistan. Sixty thousand of them die.
He said lack of awareness was the “major hurdle” in reducing the number of TB patients. “Plus many consider the disease to be a stigma and avoid visiting the TB health centres, exposing many more to the risk of being infected,” Baloch added.
He said the government launched a survey in November to count the number of TB patients in the country, which will be completed by the end of 2011. The survey will be conducted in 92 districts, during which an estimated 1,38,000 tests for TB will be conducted.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2010.
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