The provision of safe drinking water, a well-planned sewerage system and better nutrition are part and parcel of a health system, but unfortunately, both children and adults are still dying in Pakistan due to cholera and other water-borne diseases, leading health experts told a moot on Sunday.
On the other hand, they pointed out, billions and billions of rupees are being spent on tertiary-care hospitals that are getting overburdened with every passing day. “In the past, kings used to build Taj Mahal, but nowadays, our rulers are building tertiary-care hospitals and naming them after their wives, sons or daughters, or giving them their own names,” health scholar and physician Prof Ejaz Vohra said on the last day of the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association’s (Pima) Karachi Conference 2022.
“They are not providing safe drinking water, a better sewerage system, adequate nutrition and vaccines to prevent diseases because they can’t place their plaques on them.” The plenary session of Pima’s Karachi Con’22 was titled ‘21st Century Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities’, and it was addressed by University of Health Sciences, Lahore, Vice Chancellor Prof Javed Akram and Health Services Academy, Islamabad, VC Prof Shahzad Ali Khan.
Other speakers included Getz Pharma Managing Director Khalid Mahmood, Pakistan Medical Commission President Dr Arshad Taqi, digital health guru Dr Zakiuddin Ahmed and World Health Organisation representative in Sindh Dr Sara Salman.
Terming health a basic human right of every Pakistani, Prof Vohra said that due to contaminated water, thousands of children as well as adults are dying in Pakistan. He said that these deaths can be prevented just by providing potable water, adding that millions of children are stunted in Pakistan because they are not getting the nutrition required for the growth of their minds and bodies.
“We as physicians should speak for our patients because they come to us for their well-being. Building large hospitals is not the solution,” he pointed out. “We don’t need new cardiac-care hospitals, liver transplant centres and the latest machinery because we can save 1,000 times more lives by providing primary care and prevention services to our people.”
In his keynote address, Prof Akram spoke about practising evidence-based medicine, and urged physicians and the pharmaceutical industry to promote the concept to save precious resources of patients.
“I would urge physicians to keep updating their knowledge, read new articles and practise evidence-based medicine, while the pharma sector should support local research so that local solutions to our problems can be found.”
He said that new studies and research shows that in 40 per cent of the cases, patients do not need any medicine or intervention since they can get better by getting no medical treatment at all, but despite knowing this, doctors prescribe medicines to satisfy the patients.
Deploring that very little research is being done by Pakistani healthcare professionals and medical scientists, he said Pakistan is ranked 74th in terms of conducting clinical trials, while China is leading in this area. He urged the pharmaceutical industry to provide more resources to medical universities for research.
Speaking about leadership in healthcare, Mahmood said that building healthcare facilities for the elite will not benefit us at all at a time when the poor segment of society is without the basic necessities of life including basic healthcare facilities.
He asked if we should expect a stunted child to simply start thinking while we keep talking about promoting critical thinking in the country.
“Pakistan is getting the biggest chunk of foreign exchange from our workers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other Middle Eastern and European countries, but we have done nothing to provide better health facilities to their families here. The last tertiary-care hospital in Karachi was built some 48 years ago.”
Speaking about the availability of medicines, he said that neither the basic medicines, like the ones required for the treatment of tuberculosis, nor the latest monoclonal antibodies are being prepared in Pakistan due to the issues in the prevailing system in the country.
Prof Khan disagreed with all the participants, saying that instead of promoting negativity, there is a need to promote a positive image of local institutions. He urged healthcare providers to interact with medical journalists and apprise them of their successes.
“Instead of criticising ourselves, we should highlight our achievements in the area of research, medical practice and education. Instead of feeding negative information, we should work to improve our perception in the eyes of people through the media.”
Dr Ahmed called for adopting a patient-centric healthcare approach, saying that digital health solutions can resolve many of the issues faced by the health sector in Pakistan. Dr Sara spoke about her organisation’s efforts to transform at least 14 public and private hospitals in the province into patient-friendly institutions.
Dr Taqi spoke on the quality of the basic medical education, and teaching the value of empathy to young healthcare professionals. Prof Abdul Ghaffar Billo also spoke on the occasion.
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