The Issues and Challenges Faced by Lady Health Workers in Maternal Health Care in Rural Communities: An Evidence from South Punjab

Abstract

The Lady health worker (LHW) programme is one of the important steps that have been taken by Pakistan since 1994 to connect with communities and create awareness among different segments of the population particularly women on their maternal health. This LHW programme has managed to develop a system that connects rural communities, especially women with the first-level care facility in communities with a great focus on maternal health care. The current paper aims to identify the challenges and issues faced by lady health workers while they work in rural communities and emphasise on women’s maternal health rights. The study has also assessed the administrative hurdles at the government level that undermines the performance of LHW while working in rural communities of South Punjab. This research is qualitative in nature. Data has been collected using the method of focus group discussion (FGD). Two FGDs were conducted from each district of South Punjab known as Muzaffargarh and RajunPur. Thematic analysis has been used to analyse the data. The study will be helpful for policymakers, health departments and other government agencies. It may assist them to formulate and plan better maternal health care programmes while focusing on hurdles in its way like the socio-cultural issues and improving the working of existing programmes like LHW in country