PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will start providing physiotherapy services at the district headquarters hospitals from next month to provide free treatment to people, officials say.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would become the first province of the country to start physical therapy servicesin25 districtsinSeptember as interviews for appointing physiotherapists had already taken place, Dr Mahboobur Rehman, the provincial coordinator for physically challenged people, told Dawn.

`We are also in the process to supply the desired equipments to the hospitals,` he said. He added that the process of recruitment ofcandidates was near completion.

The recruitments were made through National Testing Services to ensure transparency in the process, he said.

Dr Mahboob said that 20 per cent of the officials would be females, who would be deployed in the areas where literacy rate was low and people were hesitant to be seen or treated by male doctors.

The physiotherapists would be also tasked to train the health workers, especially female, locally to meet the patients` demand, he said.

`Last year, the provincial health department approved a two-year project `Strengthening ofrehabilitation servicesforphysically disabled in KP` on our recommendations to provide free treatment to the people suffering from low back pain, poliomyelitis, arthritis, knee joint pain and others, who need physiotherapy after recovering from fractures, or those who, are operated upon, said Dr Mahboob. An amount of R s59 million had been release d by government under an ADPscheme which was likely to be extended, he said.

`It is a special and specific project, which targets disabled population too. The government`s willingness to launch the project was based on the prolonged violence which left behind major and minor disabilities,` Dr Mahboob said.

According to UN agencies, 12 per cent population of the province suffered from disabilities while number of disabilities was far more, he said. Physical therapy was nonpharmaceutical intervention with good results, he said.

Dr Mahboob said that the project would prove useful for the people, who had no access to the physical therapy so far. `We also plan to demand more posts of female physiotherapists to facilitate more women patients,` he said.

Dr Mahboob, who is also head of physiotherapy department at Hayatabad Medical Complex, said that the province had more than 100 physiotherapists, whose services could be used to prevent disabilities. The PakistanPhysiotherapists Association with about 1,200 members was also cooperating with them to benefit more people from the programme, he said.

The government will appoint 20 officials with qualification of BSc or Doctor of Physiotherapy in BPS-17, who will act as master trainers in their respective district headquarters (DHQ) hospitals to impart training to nurses and technicians to cover more people.

Currently, physiotherapy services were available only in teaching hospitals in Peshawar and Abbottabad owing to which people in other districts were prone to develop physical disabilities even of minor problems, Dr Mahboob said.

Officials in Federally Administered Tribal Areas said they had also started a similar project to provide free services to the people. `We have employed physiotherapists in all agencies except North Waziristan where military campaign against Taliban insurgents is in progress,` they added.