Straightening out the NHS

A crucial area in need of reform in the country is healthcare accessibility and availability, particularly for the lower rungs of socioeconomic classes. Although often snagging up foreign funding opportunities in the form of loans and donations and looking to developed nations for its own welfare, Pakistan’s leadership wants to make the country a welfare state vis-à-vis expanding the Prime Minister National Health Programme (PMNHP) to other provinces. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has directed the Ministry of National Health Services to also present a plan to address various issues plaguing the drug and healthcare industry, including the backlog in the registration and fixing of drug prices. PM Abbasi’s attention towards healthcare for the poor is welcome. People from impoverished backgrounds suffer the most due to poor access to healthcare and a general lack of concern by the state. Until the basic needs of a people of a country are met, especially their physical wellbeing and fitness, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of the cycles of poverty they are used to, let alone contribute to the progress of the nation.

Thus far, according to its website, the PMNHP boasts 1,073,128 members. Millions more citizens are below the poverty line so indeed the expansion project will require significant time and strategising to harness more people under its care. A goal that would facilitate the programme’s target class faster is the regulation of drug prices. Although the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has been effective in keeping the prices of common drugs low and subsidising others like contraceptives, many specialty drugs, especially for cardiac care — which is increasingly becoming an epidemic — remain out of reach for many. The PM’s approach to sort out healthcare seems to be one seeking a fair balance and aiming to please both the drug industry and the poor consumer. However, the perspective of looking after the wellbeing of the less fortunate in society as top priority must not be lost. Big pharma has profited plenty.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 20^th, 2017.

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