Over the past 10 years, the budget for health care services has averaged around 0.27pc, reaching its highest value of 0.4pc in FY21 thanks to additional funding put aside to battle Covid-19. The budget has since been reduced to a measly 0.16pc for FY25; troubling news given how Pakistan struggles with health and safety with incidence reports of life-threatening diseases, like cancer incredibly prevalent today

Data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) shows that 98 women in a thousand reportedly suffered from some form of cancer — breast cancer being the most common — while 59 women in a thousand reportedly died in 2022. A comprehensive national registry published in the Journal of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan goes so far as to say breast cancer frequency in women touches epidemic proportions and delayed diagnosis as is quite common in the country, leading to a higher mortality rate.

Unfortunately, this has as much to do with social taboos discouraging discussion of any breast-related symptoms with family members that could help identify abnormalities, as much as medical inadequacy. There is still more to do when the cancer question rolls around every October as we get no closer to some kind of wondrous medical breakthrough; extensive research, discovering medicine, creating treatments that don’t leave patients more dead than alive, and more, which simply cannot be properly addressed if the healthcare budget never scoots past 0.5pc.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 28th, 2024