Challenges Faced by Healthcare Workers in Rural Punjab of Pakistan: A Qualitative Study

This exploratory-qualitative study aims at improving the mother and child health, with the objective to understand the views of women about community midwives (CMWs) and lady health workers (LHWs) compared to traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in district Layyah. 30 in-depth interviews with the respondents not only provided an insight of pregnant women and mothers regarding healthcare workers’ services, but also highlighted the motivation, work environment and proficiency among the field health workers. The study showed that CMWs and LHWs are inadequately deployed in their geographical area. Women are mostly unaware of their existence, even if aware; may lack trust in them. The majority of women do prefer the deliveries at home because TBAs are the only affordable and accessible community-based option available to them. Some key reasons including financial, lack of trust and a fear of being mishandled by untrained CMWs resulted in the non-utilization of health facilities for maternal healthcare. The awareness regarding motivation and commitment of the CMWs and LHWs is extremely important at the moment to remove the reservations of the community and gaining their optimum confidence. The real causes of the existing unproductive rural health program are serious structural weakness, poor pay-scales and lack of official attention.