RAHIM YAR KHAN: Punjab Chief Minister’s ‘Clinic On Wheels’ programme is providing some basic health services to the urban slums of the city whereas many people in rural areas are deprived of health facilities which are far away from Rural Health Centres (RHCs) and Basic Health Units (BHUs).

The Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, along with the District Health Authority chief executive officer launched the COW project on May 13, 2024 in four union councils (UCs) of urban slums: 30-A, 31-B, 32-C, and 38-I.

The initiative uses six vehicles equipped with experienced doctors, lady health workers, dispensers, and vaccinators to provide basic health services, illness diagnosis, vaccinations, nutritional screening for children, ultrasound, and treatment for malaria and diabetes. Sixteen types of medicines are also available through the programme.

Despite these efforts, residents of three out of the four union councils are unaware of the programme.

Facility is designed for urban slums and irrelevant for far-off areas

A political activist from Trust Colony, Ahmer Raza, said he had neither heard of nor seen the clinic in UC 31-B in the past three weeks. Muhammad Ashraf, a resident of UC 32-C, said he continues to visit Sheikh Zayed Medical College Hospital (SZMCH) for medical needs and had no knowledge of the mobile clinic.

However, Zafar Iqbal Sharif, a religious cleric from UC 30-A, appreciated the programme and said that he established a camp outside a mosque on the request of the health department where almost 300 people visited.

But in the same UC, there were few people in the camps established at Chak 11-P East and Iqbalnagar, he added.A senior doctor at SZMCH, Dr. Shabbir Warriach, said the programme would be more beneficial for rural areas, as urban localities are already near SZMCH.

A former EDO Health, Dr. Makhdoom Basharat, said former chief minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif had started a programme - Mobile Health Unit (MHU) in 2015. The unit consisted of a 10-wheeler trailer equipped with two beds, X- rays, ultrasound, laboratory for baseline tests and a mini-operation theatre with routine medicines.

The clinic on wheels was the replica of that programme but MHU was for the betterment of rural area patients in the radius of 35 to 40 kms where the people could not access the RHCs or BHUs and its proper schedule was released in advance. But in 2018 that MHU was stopped due to unknown reasons.

COW Programme focal person Dr. Rao Shehzad provided conflicting details. He said only four vehicles are operational, with ultrasound available in just one. These vehicles transport medical teams and medicines, while camps are established in scheduled areas to provide services such as antenatal and postnatal care, family planning, nutritional screening, child vaccination, and general outpatient services.

More than 18,000 patients were facilitated by this programme and daily average of patients was 600.

Answering a question as to how the programme was advertised among masses of four UCs, he replied that there were two methods. First, they mobilised the people through lady health workers and secondly they displayed banners and make announcements about the clinic on wheels camps.

But Dr Rao has no argument why the programme was started for urban area people despite a large health facility in the shape of SZMCH.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2024