Infant mortality rate cut in Chitral

Report Zahiruddin, Chitral

The infant mortality rate in the district has been reduced from 57 to 38 per thousand while the maternal mortality rate plunged to 100 per 100,000 during the last eleven years, a source in the health department told this correspondent on Friday.
The national programme for family planning and primary healthcare was launched in Chitral in 1995. “It has rendered tremendous services to the people as a result health indicators in Chitral have improved,” he claimed, adding that to control the population explosion in the district, the contraceptive prevalence rate had been increased by 18 per cent over the period.
The primary healthcare consisted maternal child healthcare, education on sanitation and better nutrition and treatment of minor ailments. He said that in the 24 union councils of the district, 466 lady health workers were serving the people being available round-the-clock, supervised by 20 lady supervisors who had been provided with jeeps.
He said that a health worker covered a population ranging from 700 to 1,000. The pregnant ladies were taken special care of and they were provided iron tablets and other medicines and the health workers visited them periodically and kept record of the health state.
As the health facilities were very limited, he said, so the women folk depended on the programme and derived maximum benefit from it. The health workers were bound to visit a house at least five times a month and educate its members about cleanliness, medication and impart training on preparation of the ORS. He said the programme had also helped the health department to make the national immunisation day success story.

The source said that under the programme, basic drugs were being provided in sufficient quantities by the provincial programme implementation unit and a good volume of drugs was stored in Chitral before the closure of the Lowari Pass in December every year.

The source suggested that the criterion of the ratio of a health worker to population be relaxed due to the fact that the district was sparsely populated. The enhancement of drug quota for the district due to its backwardness would also mitigate the sufferings of the people.



WORKSHOP: The three-day workshop on ‘reporting on women rights’ for media persons under the aegis of the Regional Women Empowerment Project started here.

In the first day, Imtiaz Ahmed and Dr Inayatullah Faizi highlighted the importance of the rights of women with special context of Chitral. Persons both from the electronic and print media attended the workshop in a large number.