ajpirzada
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why do you want new roads when the existing ones are encroached upon and with no traffic regulation?
or new hospitals when the existing ones are understaffed, out of medicine and lacking efficient organisation structure?
or new schools when the existing ones are understaffed, without proper infrastructure and an urdu medium delivery system?
or new universities which are run as fiefdoms by the respective VCs while having no research focus?
its better to set in place an institutional structure for all these things and then go on to build more. PTI never said they will build new schools, hospitals, universities etc but instead they promised to improve the governance of the existing institutions. This is what they will be judged upon during the next elections.
New system improves attendance of staff at hospitals
ASHFAQ YUSUFZAI — PUBLISHED about 9 hours ago
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PESHAWAR: The attendance of doctors and other staff has improved at the teaching hospitals after launching of biometric machines some three weeks ago, according to sources.
The health department has made it obligatory for the teaching staff to record the attendance through the system, recently installed at the teaching hospitals of the province.
The provincial government launched biometric system of attendance in the four teaching hospitals of the province -- Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar and Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad -- with a view to ensure presence of health staffers and improve patients’ care at the public sector hospitals.
The system of attendance was not new for paramedics, nurses and other staff of these institutions as there was already a mechanism according to which each of them used to sing a register soon after arrival at their respective places.
On contrary, it was quite new for doctors, who had no attendance system, and it was for the first time that presence of professors, associate and assistant professors were checked under the new system at the hospitals, sources said.
Previously, there was administrative check on senior as well as junior doctors.
The associations of doctors argue that the system is not appropriate for them owing to their nature of duty, but official sources say that biometric system of attendance is part of the government’s reform agenda in health sector and can be applied on all employees from professor to Class-IV.
Majority of senior consultants approve the biometric system
“Doctors were government servants like any other employee and are required to comply with the government’s directives,” a medical director at a teaching hospital told Dawn. He said that majority of senior consultants approved the system but 20 per cent were still hesitant.
There are some technical flaws in the machines which are being taken care of. For example, the machines failed to recognise some of the thumbs which had been reported to the authorities.
“Every government employee will have to make thumb impression on biometric machines already installed in their respective departments. The system informs all the relevant officials about the attendance of their staff,” he said.
A professor, who heads a ward at a city’s hospital, said that he had become sick with his fellow junior doctors owing to their unlawful disappearance from the wards and OPDs. He feels that the system is good. “I am able to track my staff,” he said. It can be improved with passing of time.
“If a professor, who leads a department at a teaching hospital, becomes punctual, the other staff from dispenser to nurse and technician, ward orderly and sweeper will follow suit. It will lead to quality of patients’ care,” he said.
A senior surgeon said that he could check attendance of his staff at the department even if he was away.
A professor said that it would also help to increase the number of patients at the OPDs, laboratories, wards and operation theaters etc where lack of attendance had been a major problem in the past. Services would improve, he said.
“In a few weeks, attendance has improved. Some problems are still there, which can be overcome by local administrators. Some employees visit the machine in the morning and disappear and come back to hospitals at 2pm to record thumbs on the machine,” he said.
The professor said that since the launch of the new system, they had detected more than a dozen ghost employees besides improving staff presence.
Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2015
