Most of Uruzgan healthcare centers without buildings

TIRINKOT (Pajhwok): More than half of healthcare centers in central Uruzgan province have no buildings of their own and run their services in rented houses.

There are a total of 56 health centers in Tirinkot, the capital of the province, and five districts, that provide health services to 450,000 people.

However, 42 of the 56 health centers have no buildings and have been operating in rented houses for years.

Dr. MohammadullahRouhani, Uruzgan public health director, told Pajhwok Afghan News that health centers operating in rented houses caused their services to disrupt.

He said only 14 healthcare centers including the Provincial Civil Hospital, 20-bed district hospitals and some other regional health centers near the provincial capital were operated in standard government buildings, while the rest 42 operated in rented buildings which had no any standards.

Even if these health centers provide only basic health services, it is essential that they should have standard buildings, he said.

Rouhani said that standard buildings played an important role in providing quality health services to the people.

He said that he had asked the provincial officials, the Ministry of Public Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), to help build buildings for health facilities in the province.

He also mentioned lack of adequate medicines in health centers as a problem facing the people of Uruzgan.

He said that the Ministry of Public Health supplied drugs for 450,000 people while the population of Uruzgan reached over a million people.

However, he noted that efforts were underway to find a solution to all these problems and to provide quality healthcare to the people.

Uruzgan people also complain about lack of medicine and other health facilities in healthcare centers.

HabibRahman, a resident of Tirinkot city, told Pajhwok that many patients visiting public healthcare centers were referred to private medical stores to purchase drugs.

“The problem is more prevalent in districts and remote areas, where people are poor and unable to afford medicine”, he said. He asked the Ministry of Public Health to resolve their problems.

Due to these and other problems, people say the central government has been treating the province with discrimination over the past two decades.

They call on the caretaker government to pay special attention to Uruzgan and resolve their current problems.

mds/ma