PESHAWAR: Several inhabitants of Upper South Waziristan tribal district have moved Peshawar High Court against ‘lack’ of health facilities and requested for setting up a fully functional district headquarters hospital (DHQ) there.

A petition with multiple prayers was jointly filed by residents of Ladha tehsil of the district including Sherpao alias Paji, Asifur Rehman and others. They sought declaration of the court that denial of adequate health facilities in Upper South Waziristan district was unconstitutional and a violation of fundamental rights of citizens there.

The petition, filed through Advocate Sajjad Ahmad Mehsud, includes prayer to the court to issue directives to respondents including provincial government for ensuring availability of qualified and specialist doctors including female medics, essential medicines and necessary medical equipment.

It sought directives of the court for respondents to make all the basic health units (BHUs), rural health centres (RHCs) and civil dispensaries fully functional particularly in remote areas including Karama.

Petition seeks functional DHQ hospital, other facilities in the district

Moreover, it requested for establishment of medico-legal units and post-mortem facilities within the district on urgent basis.

The petition stated that before 2018, South Waziristan was a tribal agency included in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). It stated that after the merger of Fata into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through Constitution (Twenty-fifth Amendment) Act, South Waziristan was granted the status of a settled district.

It said that through a notification by the KP government in 2022, South Waziristan was bifurcated into Upper and Lower South Waziristan districts.

The petitioners said that upon creation of Upper South Waziristan district, the respondents became legally and constitutionally bound to provide essential infrastructure, including administrative offices, law enforcement system and most importantly a fully functional district headquarters hospital.

However, they stated that despite lapse of considerable time since creation of the district, the respondents had failed to setup the DHQ hospital, thereby leaving the entire population deprived of basic and essential healthcare services.

They claimed that the existing healthcare structure in the district was limited to a few BHUs and small health centres, which were either non-functional or grossly under-resourced, lacking qualified staff, medicines and essential equipment, thus rendering those ineffective for any meaningful medical assistance.

The petitioners stated that there were no medico-legal facilities, post-mortem units or medico-legal officers (MLOs) in the district, as a result whereof the residents were compelled to transport bodies of deceased persons to other districts for post-mortem examinations, leading to unnecessary delay, degradation of forensic evidence and serious impediments in the administration of justice.

They said that in cases of medical emergencies, people were forced to travel long distances often ranging from five to seven hours to Dera Ismail Khan and up to 14-15 hours to Peshawar, which frequently resulted in preventable fatalities during transit due to lack of timely medical intervention.

The respondents in the petition are KP government through its chief secretary, secretaries of health and planning and development departments, director general health services, district health officer and deputy commissioner of Upper South Waziristan and Independent Monitoring Unit Health through its director.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2026