PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department is upgrading trauma services at the district headquarters hospitals in the province to give proper care to the victims of terrorism at the local level.

“During the coming six months the government will work on the upgradation of health care services at the district headquarters hospitals,” secretary health Jamal Yousaf told Dawn. The government has started a massive exercise to procure equipment and medicines and scale up infrastructure to improve trauma services to provide medical care to the critically-injured people at the DHQ hospitals.

Previously, most of the victims would be rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, which had got the biggest Accident and Emergency Department with vast experience in providing care to victims of terrorism, flood, earthquakes, etc.

However, during the last two incidents, in Mardan and Charsadda, it was noted that the trauma services have shown improvement which made possible treatment of the terror victims locally. Only three wounded persons were brought to LRH from Charsadda, the nearest district to Peshawar, he said.

Health secretary says improvement of RHCs and BHUs also a priority

Also, it was for the first time on Wednesday that the LRH administration didn’t allow media representatives to make footage of the victims in line with the SOPs issued last week to make patients’ treatment hassle-free.

Upgradation of the accidents and emergency departments is part of the government’s plan to strengthen the DHQ hospitals by spending Rs7.8 billion. The plan also includes payment of three-time more salaries to doctors working in backward districts of Buner, Battagram, Torghar, Chitral, etc and recruitment of about 1,100 nurses in the province.

The health secretary said that the DHQ hospitals had got the services of orthopaedic and general surgeons, physicians and support staff who could handle emergencies. He said that the government was fully focused on improvement of rural health centres, basic health units and tehsil headquarters hospitals.

He said that the government was now free from the affairs of four teaching hospitals after enforcement of the Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms Act 2015. He said that the new policy was aimed at ensuring better health services at the district level and reducing load on the tertiary care hospitals in Peshawar.

He said that doctors who were previously unwilling to be deployed in remote areas had shown interest due to attractive financial incentives. Similar packages for paramedics and nurses are also in the pipeline, he said.

A member of the LRH board of governors is working on a plan to establish a department of trauma which will offer diploma and degrees to doctors and health workers, who will serve at the local hospitals.

According to another official, people who sustained injuries during last year’s flood in Chitral could not be provided treatment as the health units there lacked the desired facilities. He said that a few lucky ones were flown to Islamabad, but most of them stayed in Chitral. He said that people avoided to be posted in far-flung areas.

“If a person gets the same salary in Peshawar and backward districts like Chitral, why would one go for the latter,” he said, adding that they would strengthen services through staff, medicine and equipments at the DHQ hospitals.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2016