The National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Healthcare has failed to meet its goal because of a shortage of funds and manpower. PHOTO: ONLINE
Acull is the selective slaughter of a part of a population. Typically it is used in respect of controlling animal populations, but it is not overstating the case to say that there is currently a cull going on in Pakistan. It is a cull of humans, and specifically human children. Children are dying across the country from what amounts to willful and criminal neglect by this and successive governments. It is a tragedy on a national scale that receives little or no publicity, being reduced to no more than a footnote to the daily news. Research conducted by this newspaper and involving a range of governmental and non-governmental sources reveals that 352,000 children under five die every year in the country. They die from a range of preventable causes. There were 1,800 deaths from measles in the four provinces in 2014. Pakistan has the highest rate globally of first-day deaths and stillbirths at 40.7 per 1,000; a staggering 28,000 women die in childbirth every year. About 50 per cent of mothers give birth without a skilled attendant being present.
Not all deaths are preventable, and some children would die anyway as would some mothers as a result of pregnancy-related complications, but many are preventable. Why they are not prevented is a matter of political apathy, a failure to invest in the services and skills that would save the lives of countless thousands. Where services exist, they are insufficient. The infant mortality rate in developing nations shows a steady decline — but not so in Pakistan where it has been static since 1994. The National Programme for Family Planning and Primary Healthcare has failed to meet its goal because of a shortage of funds and manpower. The meetings that should be convened for all stakeholders in the provision and reception of healthcare are not held. There is a shortfall of 30,000 community midwives in Sindh and Punjab alone, and it would take Rs77 billon to bring the Lady Health Worker service up to strength. The cull continues, expect no early change.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2015.
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@Toticalling: If I go by India where 1.2 million kids die before age of 5, fully half of them die within the first one Month and 85% die before the age of one. This has to do with delivery at home by untrained dai, inability to manage infection and other such outcomes that arise due to that, young mothers with inadequate nutrition giving birth to weak children with weak immunities. Poor water quality which leads to diarrhoea that kids are unable to survive.
Please note that in India it is 49 out of thousand live born kids that do not survive to the age of 5 today. I elieve the comparable number in Pakistan is 0. This number was 70 per thousand barely 6 years back in India so despite significant improvements there are gaps but knowledge of the gaps is leading to a relatively much higher rate of improvement than has been the case in the past.
I imagine similar causes apply to Pakistan but in the absence of even a census in the last 18 years, district level information of gaps is not available. This might be inhibiting progress. Just a thought.
The article has not done a thorough research on the subject, or perhaps is not written very well. What a reader wants to know is how do the children die in such numbers. Is it under nourishment or is it because baby care is missing. Do majority of deaths happen because parents hurt them? There are so many factors which we do not know and expect this analysis telling us just that. Whatever the causes there are, it is shameful that whereas our leaders get excellent medical care. Many go aboraod to get best treatment,with our hard earned money that we send back home and poor children depart from this world without being able to see it as grown ups.Yes, iI doubt if anything is going to improve soon.