PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has directed district headquarters hospitals across the province to establish workplace harassment committees, increase intensive care unit bed capacity and begin ethical training programmes for staff members to ensure provision of better services and environment to patients.

The orders were issued to the hospital medical superintendents in light of the shortcomings noted in a recent meeting chaired by adviser to the chief minister on health Ihtisham Ali, according to a health department notification.

It said during the meeting, MSs complained about `shortage of medicines, absenteeism, especially by medical officers, functionality and rationalisation of equipment, increasingpatients` flow at the outpatients departments, functionality of washrooms, biometric attendance and data about instruments and equipment, activation of hospital management committees, putting in place complaint redressal system and other shortcomings.

The department directed hospitals to enhance the number of ICU beds within a year to ensure that the critically-ill and injured patients receive timely care at DHQ hospitals in their native areas.

According to it, the functional ICU beds in DHQ hospitals total 405, with 258 ventilators and 375 installed monitors, while 109 beds, 66 ventilators and 115 monitors are lying in stores.

The health department asked hospitals to introduce a system of rewards and punishments to encourage hard working employees and take action against those remaining absent from duty to badly hit patient care.

During the meeting, called MSs Conference the first of its kind in the province the issue of staff training on gender-based violence also came under discussion. The minister was told that82 master trainers of 22 DHQ hospitals underwent training, and directives were issued to ensure training of 10 per cent of staffin the current year and 25 percentnextyear.

The notification said all DHQ hospitals, except those in Buner and North Waziristan, had established reproductive and mental health counselling desks.

`A total of 10,379 patients have been counselled at the reproductive desks and 1,775 at mental health desks,` it read, adding that heads of DHQ hospitals in Buner and North Waziristan were directed to set up those desks immediately.

It added that `functionality` had been showing improvement at DHQ hospitals to 78pc but it was still below the benchmark of 90, so further improvement was required.

The health department also noted that `rationalisation of equipment and relocation` from DHQ hospitals where those weren`t needed should be expedited and the relevant officials should identify the equipment and instruments that had not been in use and consigned to stores and were still in boxes.It added that the DHQ hospitalsshouldlookintothe option of launching normal OPDs in the evening shift so that the serious patients coming to accidents and emergency departments didn`t suffer.

The department said that the biometric attendance system was strengthened to ensure the presence of staff and benefit patients.

`MSs will face disciplinary action in case their performance stays below 60pc,`it said.

The health department said all DHQ hospitals should submit annual quality reports to it andseekitsrequiredassistance to make the services effective and improve patient care.

It noted that the province had around 2,600 health facilities with 60,000 employees, including doctors, nurses and paramedics, as well as huge infrastructure to provide services to visitors if they worked with dedication.

`Ethical training of staff should be given priority to facilitate the patients with respect and professionalism,` the health department told hospital heads through the notification.