ISLAMABAD, June 5: In Pakistan there exists only one doctor for a population of 1,466, one dentist for 29,405 people, one nurse for 3,347 and one hospital bed for 1,517 people, the Economic Survey 2002-03 says.
The economic survey, which was released in a press conference of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday, conceded that this situation reflects a poor health status of the country.
It said in 2002-03, there were 101,635 registered doctors, 5,068 dentists and 44,520 nurses in the country.
The low level of life expectancy (63 years), high child mortality rate under five years (110 per 1,000), high infant mortality rate (83.3 per 1000) and high population growth rate at 2.1 per cent provides the basis to revise national health priorities.
Like Pakistan, the life expectancy in India is also 63 years, but it is 73 years in Sri Lanka.
A number of inadequacies like unhygienic living conditions, lack of health facilities, scarcity of potable water, paucity of capital resources to meet the recurring expenditure, malnutrition, specially among children, and women of reproductive age, diseases like Malaria, Tuberculosis, AIDS, and drug abuse are the major areas of concern.
However, the survey noted that the health infrastructure over the years had developed significantly in Pakistan, conceding that the provision of better health facilities to improve people’s living standard was of paramount importance.
It said the quality of life in the country was not upto the mark in relation to that in other regional countries.
However, the current health infrastructure, with 906 hospitals, 4,590 dispensaries, 550 rural health centres (RHCs) and 5,308 basic health units (BHUs), compared well with that of other developing countries.
The survey said different health priority programmes with special focus on major public health problems had been carried out. These include cancer treatment, AIDS prevention and malaria control programmes.
During 2002-03, 25 BHUs and five RHCs have been built, and 25 BHUs and 15 RHCs upgraded. Besides, 3,500 new doctors, 200 dentists, 2,000 nurses and 4,500 paramedics have been trained.
Under the preventive programme, 7.5 million children have been immunized and 18 million packets of ORS distributed during 2002-03.
Though both private and public spending on health was low, the total expenditure in this context in 2002-03 was estimated at Rs28.814 billion — Rs6.609 billion development and Rs22.205 billion as recurring — which was equivalent to 0.7 per cent of the GDP.
To maintain the expansion of health facilities, a number of health programmes have been undertaken like Malaria, Tuberculosis, AIDS, Drug Abuse and malnutrition. Work for expanded programme of immunization is in progress and the number of reported polio cases have been reduced.
The TB DOTS (Direct Observation Treatment System) programme was expanded to 46 districts and the annual parasite incidence (API) of Malaria reduced to 0.69 per 1,000 population in 2002.
The survey said the major component of malnutrition was micronutrients deficiencies like Iodine, Iron, Vitamin A, however different programmes were under implementation during the year.
In primary health care (PHC), it said, the objective was to improve in qualitative terms the nutritional status of women, girls and infants by providing and expanding more PHC nutritional services.
More than 70,000 lady health workers working at village level provided services for micronutrient supplementation and counselling on growth promotion, maternal and child nutrition, breast feeding and complementary feeding on regular basis. As part of the PHC component of nutrition, nutrition information, education and communication activities have been started.
Training of health professionals regarding health/nutrition education focussing on nutrition problems of women and children and their remedies were also started.
The survey also mentioned the community nutrition programme like breast feeding promotion and protection, Tawana Pakistan project, and school nutrition package for girls.