Continuously Deteriorating Healthcare Conditions in Pakistan

The fact, that the planet Earth has majority of those people who don’t have access to basic necessities of life is quite saddening. On one hand, there are people who do not think for a second while wasting money on the useless things and on the other hand, we have people for whom it is impossible to eat food even twice a day!

Pakistan, being a third world country lacks facilities in its healthcare sector.  The number of people being pushed into poverty due to prevalence of diseases, lack of sanitation and expensive treatment is on the rise. The policy makers have an utter lack of interest in educating masses about the preventive measures they should be adopting to protect themselves from health hazards.

Health indicators play a significant role in poverty of a country. Unfortunately, the reach towards the good healthcare facility is not a right but a privilege for the lower and average class people of our country. A research by the planning and development commission explains there are a total of 12,804 basic healthcare facilities and 945 hospitals available for the population of 180 Million people in Pakistan. Further research states that there is just one doctor available for every 1200 people. In addition to that, out of every 2200 rupees, only 800 rupees are funded by the government and rest of the amount (1400 rupees) is out of the pocket expense.

These horrible numbers clearly state that healthcare is one of the major challenges faced by Pakistan. Until just recently, no significant measures have been taken into account in order to cater to this problem. Lack of responsibility, no effective monitoring and negligible amount allocated to the development of health sector are some of the huge problems that have shattered the performance of the aforementioned sector. Furthermore new health projects have been hijacked by corruption.

There is no reason we delay or not pay attention to such alarming situation that calls for an action. There exists a need to come-up with a long term strategies or policies to cope with the prevailing problems of the healthcare sector. A significant amount should be allocated to the health budget and accountability of every rupee spent should be ensured. Health planning commission should devise a development framework under which implementation of new health projects should be monitored and results are obtained. It’s time that we should own our problems and come up with the effective strategies to solve them!