SUKKUR, June 14: The rural health centre of Thari Mirwah has been handed over to an international NGO on partnership basis for providing better reproductive health facilities to people of the remote area of the district.

This was announced by District Nazim Nafisa Shah on Monday on the occasion of signing a memorandum of understanding with the Marie Stopes Society for improving healthcare services at the centre. Nazims, councillors and representatives of the health department were among the participants.

The nazim said that the step had been taken keeping in view the fact that a large number of women died during delivery process. She said that the government did not have funds to run the centre round-the-clock and provide modern health facilities to expectant mothers.

She asked representatives of the Marie Stopes to start a mobile service to extend the facilities to people living in other remote areas of the district. Ms Shah said that the centre should not only provide medical care to pregnant women but it should also provide general health facilities to people.

She also asked the society to train local youths so that they could tackle the task. She said that if the partnership with the Marie Stopes Society yielded positive results, she would request Sindh and federal governments to hand over more health centres to the society.

Earlier, Dr Mohsina Bilgrami, managing director of the society, said that modern reproductive health facilities would be provided to women at the centre to reduce the mortality rate during delivery.

She said that the society would train local boys and girls as nurses and paramedics and women doctors would be provided with modern equipment so that they could handle emergency cases. The society's project manager in Khairpur, Riaz Khan, said that the society had set up 37 centres all over the country, 20 of which were in Sindh.