KARACHI, July 14: Development funds for the health sector in Sindh has been increased by 32 per cent in the year 2005 raising the year’s allocation from Rs600 million to Rs795 million for provincial schemes alone. This was stated by the Sindh Additional Chief Secretary (Development), Ghulam Sarwar Khero, here while inaugurating a workshop on Health Sector Financing, jointly organised by the Sindh Health Department and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Mr Khero said the fundamental purpose of development was to improve the overall quality of life of the people with major emphasis on the improvement of their health status.

“As such over the last five years, there has been a consistent rise in the government’s spending on health, a major gap yet remains in this area of investment, as evidenced by the low per capita spending on health in the public sector,” he pointed out.

Mr Khero underscored the need to bridge the identified gap through all means and resources at the government disposal in the coming years so as to meet the required health related Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the year 2015.

He pointed out that the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 highlighted the concept of “health for all”, signifying the request for social justice and equity in health adding that the approach obviously required judicious use of available resources and advocacy for greater investment in health, to develop a comprehensive health sector strategy focusing on marginalized segments of the population.

According to Mr Khero for this purpose it was necessary to analyze the existing situation of health investment in the public sector to delineate the role of various partners and their relative contributions.

The acting WHO country representative to Pakistan, Dr Najibullah Mojjadidi, highlighted the importance of placing health at the centre of development as the nature and persistence over time of poverty had social, moral, economic and political implications.

He pointed out that the WHO’s Commission for Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) advocated safety nets against poverty-traps such as poor health, nutrition, education, water and sanitation, and access to health services.

Beyond these are the natural disasters and global crises that affect the poor and again must be avoided by creating safety nets in every country such as health insurance, social security and pension funds, Dr Mojjadidi added.

He informed the participants that a taskforce for the CMH had been set up to support countries with advocacy, analyses, implementation of the macroeconomics and health strategy, and tracking outcomes in six countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region including Pakistan.

Dr Mojjadidi hoped that the formation of a national CMH committee which was housed in the federal health ministry and worked closely with all the stakeholders would bear fruitful results.

He offered fateha for the souls of the deceased in the Ghotki trains tragedy.

WHO Focal Person for Health Economics, Dr Asad Hafeez and WHO Technical Officer Dr Zulfiqur Khan presented the inventory of health investment in Pakistan and the impact of devolution in the country, respectively.

Earlier in his welcome address, Additional Secretary Health Manzoor Ahmed Memon reiterated that health was an intrinsic human right as well as a central input to poverty reduction and socio-economic development.—APP