KARACHI: Several health facilities in the city and in many districts of Sindh are facing an acute shortage of staff and have been closed down because of the health department`s policy to cancel detailments and deputations, it emerged on Tuesday.

Officials in the provincial health department said they had received reports of increasing difficulties because of the cancellation of deputations of officials from other departments.

Senior hierarchy in the department said the policy to relieve the officials originally employed with other departments from the health ministry, and its hundreds of facilities established across the province, had been adopted in line with the superior judiciary`s order.

However, officials said that while the policy pleased the employees of the department, it created a vacuum at various facilities given the fact that the department was not opening fresh jobs to fill it.

`The policy will be hugely positive if the vacancies are filled in time, otherwise, as we are getting reports from various parts of the province, it is adversely affecting facilities,` said a senior official.

Sources in the department quoted the case of Malir town in Karachi where three health facilities have been shut down because of shortage of staff. Officials said that after the cancellation of detailments or deputations, the health delivery system there `collapsed`.

`At least 40 staff members of different categories including doctors andparamedics have been relieved which resulted in the closure of three health facilities in Malir town,` said a senior official.

The three closed facilities, he identified,were the Khokhrapar Maternity Home, Government Dispensary Adam Hingora and Government Dispensary, Jaffer-i-Tayyar.

`We are trying hard to run these health facilities with makeshift arrangements, but it is very difficult to maintain the health delivery system,` said an official in the town.

Officials said that the health department was a service providing department and without qualified manpower it was difficult for the system to run smoothly.

They added that the situation had been conveyed to the senior hierarchy to review its policy until the vacant posts were permanently filled.

Some officials added that the key problem the department was facing was distribution of manpower on the basis of need in different facilities and districts. Because of political influence, most doctors transfer them from remote districts where the health delivery system is already weak and crumbling to lucrative posts in urban areas.

Besides, officials said, the department`s campaign against ghost doctors and paramedics could not bear fruit as well because of their connection with certain powerful individuals and groups influencing the government.

`The equal and need-based distribution of manpower and punishment to ghost employees could bring about a huge improvement in the whole system, but it is unfortunately not happening,` said an official.