KARACHI, Aug 30: The country's health policy suffers from lack of adequate prioritization as meagre resources are allocated for provision of drugs for people visiting the various OPDs
and for meals meant for admitted patients but millions are squandered on building healthcare centres which cannot be made functional right away.
As a consequence at least 120 buildings, supposed to house various healthcare centres, remain unutilized even after the expenditure of millions on their construction. On the other hand, only Rs1.40 is allowed per day for provision of medicines to the patients visiting the government-run OPDs and just Rs2.5 a day for three meals meant for admitted patients.
This was observed at a press briefing held by the Pakistan Medical Association in the PMA House on Monday. President of the central chapter of the PMA, Dr Hadi Bakhsh Jatoi, secretary of the association, Dr Shershah Syed, secretary of the association's Karachi chapter, Dr Qaiser Sajjad, and a member, Dr Habibur Rehman Soomro, spoke on the occasion. President of the Karachi chapter of PMA, Dr Haseeb Alam, was also present.
Informing the journalists of the PMA's central council meeting, they said the government's attitude towards issues in health policy was discussed in detail. They said the authorities seemed more interested in constructing buildings than in running the same efficiently.
They were of the view that the government's priorities needed to be reviewed. They said at least 120 healthcare buildings which were ready for the last several years had not been made operational due to a lack of Sanctioned New Expenditure (SNEs).
Similarly, due to a ban on employment for the last several years thousands of posts had fallen vacant which needed to be filled immediately. Giving the breakdown, they said more than 4,000 posts were vacant in Punjab and Sindh each. And about 1,000 each were vacant in Balochistan and the NWFP.
They demanded that the vacant positions be filled with qualified people at the earliest. The office-bearers of PMA also called for the immediate appointment of meritorious paramedical staff and nurses on the posts reserved for them.
They told journalists that up to 70 per cent of the time was spent during the PMA's council meeting on the recent health conference in Islamabad during which a committee had been formed to look into the problems of the healthcare sector.
The speakers claimed that of the 800 persons taking part in the Islamabad conference, none was conversant with the situation 'on the ground'. "Just a few teenagers with foreign diplomas took part in the event and now they have been entrusted with the task of formulating the national health policy," said one of them.
They demanded that the PMA be involved, too, in the decision-making process. The PMA's office-bearers said that due to lopsided and ill-conceived policies all the vertical health projects had failed to bring about sufficient improvement in the health indicators of the country.
Even the basics were wrong, they claimed. The laws needed to deal with 600,000 quacks operating in the country were very much there. "Yet the policy-makers insist that new laws are required."
They said up to 45 people had died in Hyderabad recently after consuming water which was hazardous. "This happened several months ago but the authorities are yet to fix the responsibility for the tragic episode. Instead, a senior doctor was made a scapegoat in the grisly affair and was suspended."
Turning to the issue of violence against doctors, the PMA's office-bearers said compensation was paid to almost every person who died in terrorist actions. "But the doctors' families don't get a single penny."
They demanded that the process for the issuance of arms licences to the doctors be simplified. "If the government cannot protect us, at least it should allow us to defend ourselves."
