Peshawar - Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is all set to launch a health delivery project focusing six calamity and violence hit districts of the province where special health service hubs will be set up.
The government officials at the Civil Secretariat Peshawar told The Nation on Monday that the revitalisation and strengthening of health services delivery and nutrition services programme in crises-hit districts would be made operational soon.
“The health project will be implemented with the support of the World Bank (WB) which aims at supporting the calamity and violence hit people of DI Khan, Dir Lower, Kohistan, Battagram, Buner and Tor Ghar districts,” the officials said. They said that goal of the project is to restore people’s trust in state institutions by revitalising, strengthening and sustaining the delivery of quality healthcare services to the affected districts.
The officials said that contract agreements for Dir lower and Kohistan negotiated with the firms based on 14-month duration has been submitted for No Objection Letter (NOL) to the World Bank. He said that response on rationalised financial plan is awaited from the firm concerned.
They said that short listing of firms against Expression of Interest (EOI) for district Tor Ghar and Battagram had been completed and submitted to the WB for NOL and evaluation of technical proposals for district Buner was also submitted to the WB.
A well-placed source in the Health Department informed that under the programme hub centres would be set up at appropriate geographic locations for efficient delivery. He said that all hub centres would be equipped with ambulances for patients requiring referral to a secondary or tertiary level facility along with availability of medicines, and equipments would be supplied to the attached BHUs from the hub centres.
The official informed that KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had also discussed the hub system health delivery initiative with the WB officials in Islamabad and the programme, which will cost between $14-16 million, has all political and bureaucratic backing.
To a question, an official said that it was the central focus of authorities to establish a strong foundation for a delivery system. He said, “Under the planning, 78 per cent of the programme cost will go to actual service delivery and the total Project Management Unit (PMU) cost is less than 5 per cent of the total programme cost. The rest of the money will be spent on equipment and certain other necessary paraphernalia.“
He informed that the program is an innovative measure of the provincial government in partnering with the development sector organisations to improve service delivery. This shows the intent of the government in engaging with different important stakeholders in the province to bring about sustained development.