PESHAWAR: The plan of health department to shift unused equipment to hospitals on need basis has failed as there is no progress on it despite the lapse of six months.

The department had taken notice of the equipment lying in boxes in several hospitals and devised a plan to shift the same to the health facilities where those were needed.

However, after passing of six months, the plan is yet to take off.

As a result, the regional director health, Peshawar, wrote a letter to director-general health services Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that the additional director-general (maintenance and evaluation) had been made focal person to collect data about the quantum of unutilised items from all the hospitals.

The focal person had made several correspondences with relevant officials, asking them to submit the data. Now, the focal person wanted to shift the responsibility to others and communicated that the regional directors should submit a plan for appropriation of unused equipment.Theregionaldirectorhasrequested that for the completion of the task as per direction of the chief minister, the additional director health services (maintenance and evaluation) may be directed to devise a plan by evaluating the data collected by him inhiscapacityasfocalperson.

The same officer, he said, was the custodian of monitoring and evaluation section of director-general health services and fleets of officers and officials were working with him.

Additionally, it was important to note that a computer operator and support staff were previously assigned duties at regional directorate of Peshawar but that support had been withdrawn as per a letter issued by the additional director-general (human resources) on February 22 in the currentyear,he added.

`Therefore, without support staff it becomes difficult for the regional directorate to coordinate effectively with the districts and provincial offices for compilation of the desired data about the unused machines and equipment,` said the letter.

Sources said that the plan was hammered in the light of a report, which said that machines worth millions of rupees purchased by the government to facilitate patients hadn`t been in use as those had been procured without any prior needbased demands from the hospitals.

Subsequently, the department had asked all the medical superintendents and district health officers tosend details of uninstalled machines so that those could be given to the hospitals where they were required.

The department had warned of action in case of non-compliance of the directives, stating that no equipment should stay unutilised, they said.

Sources said that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the government had relaxed rules of tendering and procurement to cope with the infection during its peak and bulk of equipment and apparatus were purchased that were never brought into usage. Citing the report, they said that incubators, baby warmers and even gynaecological suction machines were provide to hospitals where gynaecological, paediatric and nursery wards were even nonexistent.

They said that such items were yet to be unpacked and were dumped in stores, showing that neither need assessment was carried out nor was prior demand obtained from the hospitals.

Sources said that a district headquarters hospital was given 10 ventilators that were consigned to store.

According to the report, 400 mattresses and 200 blankets were provided to 110-bed hospital and another hospital received over a dozen oxygen concentrators without any justification.

The report said that the warranty periods of most of the items had also expired without being put into usage.