KARACHI, April 6: Poverty and lack of awareness are directly responsible for inefficient health care delivery system in Pakistan and till addressing both issues the prevailing situation will stay.

These views were expressed at a seminar on “Health for all: not without rural health workers”, organized by the Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) at its Vicky Zeitlin Media Library, on Thursday.

WHO Provincial Programme Officer, HIV-AIDS Sindh, Dr Salman Safdar said that the concept of working together was vital for an efficient health care delivery system, as health care was not an isolated field.

He said that the socioeconomic aspects of health care were widespread, and besides the government, many agencies, community and social groups were involved in it.

Dr Safdar said that the efficiency of health care delivery system was a must for a continuous supply of productive and vibrant human resources.

He said that in countries like Pakistan as the rural areas provided the lion’s share of human resources, the matter of rural health was directly related to the national progress and prosperity.

He said that though present conditions of health care delivery in urban areas were not ideal, but in the rural areas this sector needed a serious attention. He said that long-term sustainable uplift was not possible without the improvement in rural health.

He hoped that devolution of powers would further improve health care system in the rural areas. Regarding the situation of HIV/Aids, Dr Safdar also stressed the need for raising awareness in both the urban and the rural areas.

The president of the National Committee on Maternal Health (NCMH), Dr Sadiqua Jafarey, said that in Pakistan some 25,000 to 30,000 women died per year during pregnancies. She said that in Pakistan one woman died every 20 minutes and a child died every eight minutes.

She said that on average, in Pakistan 5.3 doctors, 1.8 nurses and 1.6 midwives were available for 10,000 people and the ratio of doctors here was higher than nurses and paramedics.

Dr Jafarey told that presently 916 hospitals, 552 rural health centres, 3,501 basic health units and 4,582 dispensaries were working in Pakistan and majority of them needed immediate improvements.

Regional Coordinator Technical Assistant Management Agency (TAMA) Dr Nasreen Jamal Khan in her presentation said that though talking about rural health issues was popular, but the ground realities showed that no substantial practical work had been done in this regard.

She said that every human development plan should be based on ‘comprehensive human balance sheet’ rather than macro-economic aggregates of GNP, saving and investment.

Dr Khan said that doctors and medical experts were only concentrated in teaching and district headquarters hospitals, while these experts were not available in the vast rural areas.

Dr Khan said that resources in the healthcare were not being properly utilized and demanded of the government to introduce broad-based reforms in the health care sector.

PAVHNA Director Rehana Rashidi said that both the government and NGOs should focus on rural areas. She said that the NGOs could only supplement and compliment the government efforts in health care, but the real responsibility rested over the shoulders of the government.

Health-Oriented Preventive Education President Dr Mubina Agboatwala said that in Pakistan the majority of population lived in villages.

She said that to provide health care facilities to the villages, the role of rural health workers and mobile dispensaries could not be ignored.

Former director of the JPMC Dr Shakoor Kazi said that in order to bring meaningful changes in rural health care it was a must to train more paramedics.—PPI