People prefer the private sector for treatment.
SWAT: Healthcare in Pakistan is administered mainly in the private sector and this accounts for approximately 80 per cent of all outpatient visits. This would suggest that people prefer the private sector for treatment, despite having access to public-sector hospitals. Generally speaking, everybody wants quality treatment and this is why most people prefer private hospitals. There is more likelihood of a doctor giving a patient more time and attention compared with a government facility, simply because the latter is far more crowded.
Now, the question arises that why are patients not given quality medical treatment in government hospitals. Why is the quality of treatment so poor, despite the fact that government doctors are well paid and millions of rupees are spent on their education and training? I think that the answer primarily lies in the fact that a lot of the funds that are set aside for spending in the government-owned health sector are siphoned away by corrupt officials, with the end result that the spending does not fulfil the intended purpose of providing quality healthcare to ordinary people.
Pakistan faces severe health crises with rising incidence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria, skin disease, the dengue and Crimean-Congo hemaorrhagic fevers, measles, encephalitis, neonatal tetanus and other non-communicable diseases. These diseases disproportionally affect the poor more and they are most vulnerable because their reliance is mainly on government healthcare facilities.
Keeping the above in mind, the government should work for more effective implementation of its health policies. One way to do this would be to improve the monitoring mechanism, which checks the delivery of the quality of healthcare to citizens. Any citizen, rich or poor, has the right to quality treatment and it is for the government to ensure that this is done as far as is possible.
Doctors should also keep in mind that they belong to a sacred profession, so their first and foremost duty should be to ensure that people are provided all possible facilities in government hospitals.
Miangul Abdullah
Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2013.
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