Four national health programmes retained at federal level after the devolution of Ministry Of Health and National Hepatitis Control Programme (ICT component) are struggling for their survival because since July last, the Planning Commission have not issued them any funds.
After the enactment of the 18th Amendment, the health sector became a provincial subject and all the national health programmes were devolved to the provinces except for Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI), National AIDS Control Programme, National Tuberculoses Programme, National Malaria Control Programme and National Hepatitis Control Programme (Islamabad Capital Territory Component), which were retained by the federal government. The centre kept those programmes since all of them, but one, were foreign-funded and the government contributed only a little share of spending. It was only the National Hepatitis Control Programme for ICT, which relied completely on government funds.
A health official requesting anonymity told Pakistan Today on Tuesday that since July last, no funds had been released by the Planning Commission to all the above mentioned health programme and they were facing acute dearth of money. He said even their staff was working without salary. He said it was disappointing to see that the government was being apathetic towards those basic health programmes despite recent reports of increasing number of polio cases in the country. “Since the devolution of the Ministry of Health, these programme have been affected badly. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are handling hepatitis control programme without managers,” he lamented.
Fatima Bibi, who brought her 16-year old daughter, Saba Latif, to get her ‘Pagesis’ vaccination at liver centre of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) on Tuesday told Pakistan Today that she had come to the capital from Multan.
She said she could not get that vaccine from Lahore and Dr Aftab Mohsin, the programme manager of the Hepatitis Control Programme had reoffered the case to the PIMS, Islamabad. She said Dr Aftab had claimed they had got only 50 requests for the vaccine and they could not get the supply until the number reached 100. “If the demand did not reach 100, what would become of those 50, who desperately needed it,” Fatima, the mother of the patient raised the question. Dr Sania Nishtar, a health expert, when contacted, said that before the devolution, Pakistan’s national public health programmes were federally-managed and provincial and districts’ oversight was just ceremonial.
“Over the years, these programs have become a subject to heavy criticism for their vertical planning, management anomalies and lack of provincial ownership because therefore the devolution process was not fully matierialised,” she explained.
