‘Marja clinics lack medicines, provide inadequate services’

LASHKARGAH (Pajhwok): Residents of Marja district in southern Helmand province complain health facilities in the district lack medicines and provide inadequate services.

Mohammad Lal, a resident of the district, said: “Patients are not getting proper treatment here, they are given only a packet of tablets.”

Mahmood, a resident of Block Tosi area, said many residents took their patients to Lashkargah due to lack of medicine and proper services in the district clinics.

He said most of the time they had to take their patients to Lashkargah, the provincial capital, for treatment.

Meanwhile, deputy director of public health for Marja district said in order to provide better services, the district health centres should be upgraded.

On the other hand, provincial Public Health director Dr Sayed Ahmad Saeed did not fully accept the lack of medicines and inadequate health services in Marja district.

But he said the shortage of medicines occurred in Marja at the end of 2023.

“The scheme of institutions that provided medicines to health centres in 2023 has now been shifted to UNICEF. Therefore, the shortage of medicines started in the entire country amid an increase in the population.”

According to him, every year the Ministry of Public Health provides health facilities to Helmand based on its population, but as Helmand residents do not have electronic ID cards, they are given the share of 1.9m people.

He adds if a precise population census is conducted in the province and are given health facilities accordingly, they will not face such problems in the future.

sa/ma

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