SRSP Health Programme was started in 1996 by training existing Dias in the communities through a 15-days UNICEF training module for Dias training. The topics covered in the training courses were communication skills, antenatal and post natal care and problem cases, care and nutrition of new born and infants, birth spacing, diarrhoea and ORS, immunization, personal and environmental hygiene, safe drinking water and sanitation practices.
Uptill March 2003, 869 Dias have been trained and are named as Female Health Workers (FHWs). Their activities have remained focused mostly on delivery care and dissemination of knowledge about general health care principles and family planning (FP). These workers have received fee for delivery services in cash or kind from the community people, but not for other activities. Besides FHWs, over 97 Male Health Workers (MHWs) have also been trained.
Similarly Health Field days have been carried out in all the Five Regions i.e Peshawar, Mansehra, Abbottabad, Kohat and Charssada. WCOs have been linked with the FPAP and PWD. Expanded Immunization Campaigns have been carried out in the selected programme areas. Medical Camps have also been arranged for the benefit of rural poor.
SRSP has also hired the services of consultants to conduct a survey to develop health strategy for future interventions. In this regard a survey was carried out in Peshawar District to identify the gaps in Health Sector.
Following are the findings of the survey carried out:
- People want affordable, accessible and quality health care but unfortunately the existing system is unable to fulfill the desired need. The existing system lacks appropriate equipment, skilled technicians, paramedics and qualified doctors and invariably low stock in medicines, therefore the local communities do not have much faith in these health facilities. They prefer either private practitioners or local paramedics who are willing to give them time and sometimes provide treatment on credit basis.
- Local service providers like Lady Health Workers, TBAs, Male Health Motivators and any other Community Health Workers may be effective in delivery of certain aspects of health care if provided proper training.
- People avail treatment on credit basis or take loans from family or friend. This is being experimented by the local NGOs that provide health cover to its participants on installment basis.
It was concluded from the survey that there are three key stakeholders in health sector
The Government, which does offer a spectrum of services through its health facilities, though substandard; The communities who have genuine needs, but have to be mobilized to move on from the mindset of “government should provide”, and the NGOs who have adopted different models of intervention. Thus a partnership should evolve between all three key stakeholders for the accessibility of health facilities in an effective manner. |
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