EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In response to the military operations in Swat valley during the first half of 2009, Médecins du Monde initiated a programme to support the displaced population from Swat Valley, Northern Buner and their host population in Swabi and Buner districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The programme consisted of providing primary and maternal health care including nutritional and immunization components. The programme has been able to reach over 77 400 patients up until today. As part of the Médecins du Monde’s operational and exit strategy, a survey on the access to health care has been conducted throughout July and August 2010 in order to identify the access to health issues one year after the crisis. The objective of this analysis is to increase insight for all partners involved from local and provincial authorities to several humanitarian actors present in order to effectively address health access problematic of this specific region. The survey has been conducted in two phases in which all types of access restrictions have been taken into account. Physical and geographical accesses are linked to functional and quality questions, social cultural access and financial limitations. During the process we have given special attention to vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant women. The first phase consisted of focus groups discussions (FGDs) with men and women separately in four villages. The general insight resulting from these discussions supported the questionnaire for the cluster survey which has been conducted in July and August 2010. The questionnaire has been conducted in 31 villages reaching a randomly selected 617 head of household and mothers (50%/50%). Of the villages visited, 16 are located in Swabi (320 persons) and 15 in Buner (197 persons). In this summary we will give a broad outline of our main findings while the underlying details can be found in the rest of the report.
General Healthcare Access
Global access to healthcare in Swabi and Buner is in line with the provincial average Even though the access to health care in Swabi and Buner districts is comparable to the whole of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in absolute terms, the access to health care is pretty low. The access is unequal among the population. Households living in Swabi, educated, wealthier and living in an accessible village have a better access to healthcare.
Médecins du Monde
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