KARACHI: Essential healthcare services in Tando Allahyar have improved significantly over the past two years under a partnership between the Aga Khan University (AKU) and the Sindh government, speakers at a symposium said, as the district became the first in Sindh to roll out daily digital health reporting and electronic medical records (EMR) through the District Health Information System (DHIS).
The event organised by the AKU in collaboration with the provincial government, the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI) and the Gates Foundation on Tuesdaymarked two years of implementing the Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS) in Tando Allahyar district.
During the programme, government officials, development partners and frontline health workers reviewed progress and discussed scaling the model across rural districts of Sindh. Representatives from 13 districts across Sindh attended the event.
Tando Allahyar, home to nearly one million people 78 per cent of them in rural areas has served as the pilot district for the EPHS, a 62-intervention package of care delivered across community, primary and first-level hospital settings.According to AKU experts, since the programme’s launch the district has become the first in Sindh to roll out daily digital health reporting through the DHIS2 and EMR, opened a specialised care nursery at the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, trained nearly 500 lady health workers on clinical guidelines,andintroducedgeneralanaesthesia services at DHQ Tando Allahyar for the first time in the hospital’s history.
More than 55 health facility staff have been trained on digital reporting, and a growing number of the district’s 55 facilities are now reporting in real time.
At the DHQ Hospital, the new specialised care nursery, staffed by nine specially trained doctors, nurses and technicians, has added newborn intensive care capability that did not exist in the district before. Surgical services have also expanded, with almost 30 per cent of procedures now carried out under general anaesthesia a service not previously available in the district.
‘Over the past two years, we have had multiple learnings with regard to training and capacity enhancement, information system digitisation, community engagement, and costing of services that can guide how EPHS can be implemented elsewhereinSindhandinPakistan, said Dr Sameen Siddiqi, professor,Department of Community Health Sciences, AKU.
‘This served as a model of how stakeholders could work together to close persistent gaps in essential care and lay down the path for universal health coverage,’ she added.
In her remarks, Sindh Health and Population Welfare Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho said she hoped the work would not remain limited to Tando Allahyar alone.
‘Obviously, we want a scalable and sustainable model, because too often, once an intervention ends and the people driving it move out of a district, thingsfallthrough the cracks. That is exactly what we want to avoid sustainability has to be built in from the start,’ she said.
The symposium’s technical sessions covered the development of clinical guidelines across all 62 EPHS interventions translated into Urdu, English and Sindhi as well as costing analysis and provider behaviour-change initiatives.
Speakers noted that the district’s public financial management training and service coverage index surveys have laid the groundwork for accountable, evidence-based scaleup to other districtsin the province.
The symposium also featured remarks from Dr David Wilson of the Gates Foundation, and Javed Jagirani, CEO of PPHI Sindh, alongside representatives from Unicef and the WHO.