‘Health, education sectors top priority of government’

Islamabad : The development of health and education sectors are the top priority of the government, which is focusing its attention to localise the agenda for sustainable development, said parliamentary secretary for planning, development and reform Kanwal Shauzab.

"We are striving to address the root causes of major diseases to ease disease burden in the country," she told World Health Organisation director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region Dr Ahmad Salim Saif Al Mandhari, who called on her in her office here.

The meeting was also attended by Chief Health, Planning Commission, Dr. Muhammad Asif, Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, Head of World Health Organisation, Pakistan and Dr Zafar Mirza, Director, Health System Development of World Health Organization.

Kanwal Shauzab said the hospitals did not have sufficient paramedical staff.

She said the government was holding capacity building programmes for such staff members, which would also create a number of jobs, especially for the rural population. The parliamentary secretary said increasing the spending on the social sector was the priority of the government.

"Budgetary allocations for the health sector will be enhanced for the attainment of the Universal Health Care and sustainable development goals on health," she said.

She said improved mental well-being of the future generation would result in a more productive nation.

Discussing the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system, she said Pakistan faced the problem of accurate data availability and unavailability of accurate data also affects allocating sufficient funds.

"CRVS plays a significant role in the availability of the accurate data. The CRVS System initiated by the government of Pakistan is meant to collect information by civil registration system on the frequency of occurrence of specified and defined vital events such as births, deaths, cause of deaths, marriage, migration, its compiling, processing, analysing, evaluating, presenting and disseminating these data in some statistical form," she said.