Consultative workshops on resolving polio workers issues start

LAHORE:The Punjab government has begun rolling out follow-up consultative workshops with frontline polio workers aimed at measuring progress in resolution of their problems based on the in-depth discussion held with them over a year back.

The workshops were launched in 2023 to understand key barriers facing frontline workers and design solutions to addressing these challenges. As the polio programme continues to face a number of barriers to achieving eradication, including pockets of still missed children, in the very high-risk districts in Punjab, Punjab EOC has taken lead in rolling out the follow-up meetings to measure progress and speed up implementation of steps to resolve issues facing the polio workers. Frontline polio workers participated in the discussion held at a local hotel. During the workshop, workers stressed on understanding and addressing the root-cause of problems ‘to find impactful solutions’. Some of the problems raised by the workers needed ‘zero financial commitment’, it was learnt during workshop. Final report of the workshop will be prepared in the coming week. After going through all the problems raised by the polio workers the polio programme plans to find solutions which will be classified in short, mid and long-term categories. In his message to the frontline workers, coordinator of the Punjab Emergency Operations Centre Khizer Afzaal Chaudhry assured the workers of looking into issues on priority.