KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to hand over the management of all government dispensaries across the province to the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI), in what officials are calling a major overhaul of the primary healthcare system.
The decision is aimed at improving healthcare delivery in both urban and rural areas by tightening operational management and monitoring at the dispensary level.
An official notification issued by the Sindh Health Department has already been sent out to all District Health Officers (DHOs), informing them of the new arrangement.
Under the revised setup, PPHI will now take charge of the day-to-day running of government dispensaries — from staff supervision and medicine supply to other administrative and operational matters. Government funds and operational budgets meant for these facilities will also be routed through PPHI from here on.
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According to the notification, DHOs will no longer hold administrative control over government dispensaries. Their role will instead be limited to overseeing polio campaigns, the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), and emergency health camps.
This is not the first time Sindh has turned to PPHI for healthcare management. The organisation has been running the province’s Basic Health Units (BHUs) for a while now under a public-private partnership model, and officials say the arrangement has led to noticeably better monitoring and service delivery compared to the earlier setup. Encouraged by these results, the government now hopes that extending the model to dispensaries will help address long-standing complaints about medicine shortages, staff absenteeism, and the overall quality of primary healthcare.
