No doctors in Mastuj; AKHS accused of overcharging

Report GH Farooqui

CHITRAL: Speakers at a workshop here strongly condemned the health department for its continuous failure to appoint a doctor at the Rural Health Centre of Mastuj despite the fact that four posts of doctors were sanctioned for the centre.
The one-day workshop on human rights was organized by Easy and Equitable Access to Justice Program for Women, a project of Legal Awareness Program for Human Rights (LAPH), in collaboration with the Human Rights Monitoring Committee, Mastuj.
The speakers said the health department had no regard for people's problems and was ignoring their requests to appoint doctors in the whole area. They said there was no lady doctor in the area and the residents were compelled to rush their women to the Aga Khan Medical Centre at Booni in times of emergency.

But they regretted that most of the time the patients died on their way before reaching the hospital due to the dilapidated condition of the road.
On the other hand, they also alleged that taking undue benefit of the situation, the the Aga Khan Health Service's medical center at Booni was overcharging the poor patients.
The workshop was presided over by Abdul Rehman, a social worker from Mastuj.

Chairman Board of Director LAPH Niaz Ali Shah said his organization was working for uplift of humanity especially for protection of women's rights. He said LAPH arranged seminars and workshops for raising awareness among the masses regarding human rights.
He said they also supported widows for their rehabilitation and helped poor students in order to decrease the dropt-out ratio besides providing free legal assistance to poor and helpless women. For this purpose, they have opened three free legal aid centers which help oppressed segment of society.
He thanked Tehsil Nazim Chitral Sartaj Ahmad Khan for his support for protecting human rights.

He said there was great discrimination in different agencies and women were totally being ignored. He said there are only 135 schools for girls in the valley and for boys the number was 565; there are 606 female teachers against 1,827 male teachers; a male doctor has to check up to 4,000 patients but a lady doctor has to see over 40,000 patients.
Those who spoke on the occasion were Haji Imatuddin, Nazir Shah, Bibi Saliha, Salahuddin, Muhiuddin and Shakira Naz.