Balochistan's failing health

With a land mass that covers about 44 per cent of the entire country, Balochistan stands as the largest province of Pakistan, as well as the least populated and the least developed. Provincial Health Secretary Mujeebur Rehman has recently illustrated the extent of Balochistan's adversity, claiming that over 80 per cent of the population in the province is deprived of primary healthcare facilities. This means that less than a quarter of people in Balochistan have access to: a simple ambulance that can drive them to a hospital; or a general practitioner who can diagnose their ailments; or even basic outpatient treatment.

There are multiple factors in the province that all collude together to form a collapsing healthcare system. One of the culprits is its land mass itself. With vastly dispersed communities and an extremely low population density, the arid, mountainous region offers little respite to those attempting to optimise health infrastructure. Most of Balochistan's top hospitals are located in its most populated region, Quetta, which is a full day's drive away from its second most populated region, Turbat. In between, there are sparsely populated cities with less than 40 people per square kilometre.

But geography is not entirely to blame. According to a not-for-profit company, PPHI Balochistan, that has an agreement with the provincial government to provide primary healthcare services across multiple regions, the health infrastructure in Balochistan is "reasonably developed". The challenges instead pertain to utilisation and management.

As many as 15 major reforms, according to the health secretary, have already been introduced in the past one and a half years in Balochistan to tackle the healthcare sector. But it must be asked: was implementation of the first reform ensured before moving on to fourteen others? Until there is strict accountability and capable management, the region will find itself steeped in another decade of a façade of progress and improvement.