Ahmad Nabi
LANDI KOTAL: Installation of bio-metric system has punctual all health officials of Distract Headquarter hospital, Landi Kotal that enhance its efficiency. Like elsewhere in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), the health department installed bio-metric system in DHQ hospital, Landi Kotal, being functioned since 8th of January, 2019 with intention to regularize all the health staff in the health center.
As the new system, which has been functioned from last month the staff members are required to make their entries from 07:30 am to 08:30 am while exit timing is 01:30 pm to 2:30 pm, hospital administration official told and adding as per the record the hospital has 10 to 15 substitutes or absent employees who used to neglect their duties. Locals declared it a positive step to improve the health center abilities to treatment the ailing residents of the area.
Siraj Afridi resident of Sultan said that bio-metric system would held to produce all ghost employees of the hospital on their duties in addition with that the whole staff would be regularized and the locals would avail better health facilities. Counting benefits of bio-metric system Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Khalid Javed said that the monitoring system had great advantage because it had made the attendance of health staff hundred percent.
He maintained that since long, some of the staff members after retirement used to execute the same duty as substitute in place of his relatives with consent of that time MS but with fixing of bio metric machine, the original employee had no other option to attend his duty. In the same way, he adding that officials were irregular and were insincere to perform their official duties but the system forced them to be regularized as the bio metric was directly connected to head office.
“The record of entry and exit cannot be manipulated locally and high up of the health department directly monitor data of every single health official”, he added. One of paramedical staff of the hospital said that since long he deployed his relative as substitute to execute his official duty in the hospital and he himself had been doing his business in Punjab but with introduction of bio-metric exams, he had no other option but to ensure his presence on his post.
Some of locals feared that beside number of advantages, one negative aspect of the system was that some of non-locals specialist doctors could not arrive on time from Peshawar and other cities to attend their duties as per rule, therefore if residencies were not provided to them inside the premises of the hospital they might make their transfer from here to down towns that would certainly affect the treatment abilities of the health center and would deprive them of the specialized treatment. After merging the ex-tribal districts into KP, the KP health department in its first initiative installed bio-metric system in ex- FATA health centers to regularize the health staff and to monitor them so that to make the hospitals, useful institutions for the masses.
