Pakistan facing acute shortage of doctors

Govt pushing to increase numbers of physicians, paramedics in country

ISLAMABAD: With the increasing population of the country, Pakistan is facing a shortage of more than 0.2 million doctors, 0.18 million dentists and 1.4 million nurses.

Due to the incompetence of the government, an appropriate number of doctors have not been posted in hospitals, owing to which the patients face lot of problems daily in getting medical treatment at private and government hospitals in the entire country.

Daily, several patients visit hospitals to receive medical treatment but they leave the hospital with disappointment and worry on their faces due to the lack of doctors.

As per the global standards, it is an obligation that around two doctors, a dentist and eight nurses should be taking care of 1,000 people however the story in the country is different where the this standard is not met in number of doctors and nurses.

The official documents disclosed that around 222,221 doctors, 23,295 dentists and only 144,600 nurses have been registered in the country against the whooping population of more than 200 million.

Sindh's largest hospital facing acute shortage of staff

In line with the global standards, Pakistan collectively required more than 0.4 million doctors, 0.2 million dentists and 1.6 million nurses to meet international standards.

It is estimated that thousands of Pakistani doctors have moved abroad for a better future.

The officials documents disclose that number of registered doctors in Punjab 78,212, Islamabad 64,320, Sindh 22,925, K-P 5,136 and Baluchistan 4,015. The number of registered dentists in the same order goes as 8,665; 7,670; 3,195; 595 and 401. The number of medical surgeons and dental surgeons goes as 22,163 and 923 in Punjab, 12,577 and 563 in Sindh, 6,150 and 445 in K-P, 1,453 and 58 in Balochistan and 1,057 and 46 in AJK.

However, the federal and provincial governments have set a target to increase the collective number of physicians under human resource for health vision 2018-30 according to which some 3,14170 physicians would be added in the work force.

According to the document the government will try to increase the number of in Punjab and Islamabad to 159,866, Sindh 70,310, K-P and erstwhile FATA 54,958, Balochistan 20,470 and AJK and G-B to 8,566.

Under the same program, the number of nurses and midwives would be collectively increased to 942,511 including 505,298 in Punjab, Islamabad, AJK and GB.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2019.