Around the world, April 7 is celebrated as World Health Day. This year, World Health Day is highlighting the need for safe and resilient healthcare facilities – the infrastructure that can help ensure emergency preparedness in troubled times.

Dr Shehla Zaidi, a Karachi-based healthcare expert, exhorts the need for trained staff and better facilities to enhance Pakistan’s health infrastructure. ‘The government needs to prioritize its efforts in healthcare management. It needs to put professionals in healthcare centres.’ She explains that even though healthcare amounts to just one percent of the GDP, the main problem is not that the government doesn’t have the budget to tackle the issue. ‘The main problem is that it is not adequately managed,’ she says.

Perhaps for that reason, some healthcare professionals and members of the private sector have taken matters into their own hands. Dr Shafiqur Rehman [pictured here], professor of surgery at Dow Medical College, has teamed with a group of doctors and philanthropists to treat patients free of cost. The group launched an Operation Theatre Complex at the Civil Hospital in September 2008. The facility boasts 14 operation theatres and is equipped with state-of-the-art technology. To date, around 10,000 needy patients have received free surgeries for minor procedures as well as complicated operations related to cancer.

Explaining the reasons for setting up such a facility, Dr Shafiq says: ‘The government has failed in providing quality healthcare to the poor and needy patients. Some surgeries require 100,000 rupees or more, which a poor man in these dire economic conditions obviously can’t afford. That’s why we started this complex with the aim of providing treatment to the poor for free.’