The provincial Interim Minister for Health, Social Welfare and Public Health Engineering Dr. Saad Niaz on Wednesday directed that the independent data collection and credibility process must become more robust. He said this while chairing a meeting of the representatives of EPI, Sindh Integrated Health Program and Acasus. The Rotary Health, Dr. Mansoor Abbas Rizvi, and Special Secretary Mohammad Ali Sheikh were present on the occasion.
Dr. Niaz said that the independent monitoring and spot checks that occur in these facilities were a major contributing factor to their service delivery improvement. Therefore it is important that these systems increase in frequency. The meeting was informed that Acasus is improving the managing capacity and monitoring data to upgrade the functionality of primary healthcare facilities. Presently there are Monitoring Officers across the province, in all 30 districts, who are visiting over 1800 healthcare facilities every six weeks, the meeting was told.
The aim is to increase these Monitoring Officers and each facility can be visited at least twice a month. The monitoring data that is sent to the Department via monitors is updated in real-time and verified through pictorial and video evidence. More than 100 labour rooms in primary healthcare facilities are being upgraded and routine monitoring is ensuring service delivery. The Health Department closely monitors the conditions of the healthcare facilities as well as the medical staff present at the facilities on a daily basis. Alongside, the Department ensures that there is essential medication available at primary healthcare facilities, family planning services are credible and accessible, staff is available at the facility, and there is critical input availability for labour rooms, ANC/PNC services and immunization services. Caretaker Health Minister Dr. Saad Niaz said it would be ideal that all databases are under one umbrella of Electronic Medical Records complemented by real-time independent monitoring, integrated so that their input for the response of services can be streamlined and made more efficient.
Through monitoring and rapid actions of the Secretary, Special Secretary, and DGHS Sindh, the indicators for adequate primary healthcare facilities such as ANC/PNC Functionality, Labour Room Equipment, MO/WMO presence, Medicine Availability, Contraceptive Availability, Labour room functionality all saw a significant improvement over the year.
Dr. Saad Niaz also remarked that funds should be invested into primary healthcare infrastructure so as to ensure that the largest possible volume of the population is covered and provided access to basic healthcare. He added that in order to increase coverage of vaccination there must be more recruitment done through correspondence with the election commission and Public Health Services Commission by the secretary of health.
DHOS will be given four weeks to comply with all the indicators of a robust primary healthcare facility in all the facilities under their care and come up to the 100% marker, all DHOs not performing will be transferred and replaced, Dr. Saad Niaz said.
