‘Pakistan’s security linked to exponential spending on health’

ISLAMABAD: Health is the most essential component of national security and without spending exponentially on the health of the nation, especially on primary healthcare as well as preventive and promotional health, the security of Pakistan cannot be guaranteed, former federal health ministers, public health experts and officials declared on Wednesday.

Recommending an increase in spending on primary healthcare instead of establishing tertiary and secondary care health facilities, they called for increased budgetary allocation for health, at least 0.5 percent of the GDP on annual basis to achieve the recommended expenditure of 5percent of the GDP in the next eight years.

They were speaking at a grand national dialogue titled “Health Security”, jointly organized by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in collaboration with the Health Services Academy (HSA) Islamabad and it was addressed by former Special Assistants to Prime Minister (SAPMs) on health Dr Zafar Mirza, Dr Faisal Sultan, Vice Chancellor HSA Prof. Shahzad Ali Khan, CEO of the Sehat Saulat Program Muhammad Arshad, President IPRI Dr Raza Muhammad, Dr Rashid Wali Janjua and Dr Mubashir Hanif.

Former SAPM Dr Zafar Mirza maintained that in addition to an economic and social crisis, Pakistan is also facing a healthcare crisis and called for a need-based budgeting instead of resource-based budgeting. He maintained that in the country’s first national security policy in 2021, for the first time, it was realized that health is an essential component of national security and called for taking concrete steps to raise a healthy nation with healthy children and healthy youth, deploring that the moment 40 percent of children are stunted while a majority of youth is unemployable, uneducated and physically incapable due to burden of diseases.

“The fundamental shift Pakistan need at the moment is to change its focus from spending on tertiary healthcare to primary healthcare. At the moment, 70 percent of resources are being spent on tertiary care while hardly 30 percent are being spent on primary but we need to completely shift the equation the other way around”, Dr Mirza added.

Warning of a ‘major epidemic of HIV in Pakistan’ in the days to come, Dr Zafar Mirza deplored that 100 percent of the medicines for the treatment of HIV, TB and Malaria were being provided with funds from the Global Fund and called for creating a National Health Service inclusive of the private sector and bring the national health insurance to the primary healthcare.

Another former SAPM on health Dr Faisal Sultan called for the elimination of some major preventable diseases like TB, Hepatitis B and C as well as HIV, warning that HIV was going to become a major health threat for Pakistan as exponential growth in the HIV transmission was being observed in the country. Deploring that many essential drugs and healthcare devices are not available to the patients most of the time in Pakistan, he said most of the time 50-100 drugs are not available in the country including TB medicines and added that some modern drugs were very costly.

Dr Faisal Sultan called for creating a modern Therapeutic Goods Authority in Pakistan and also recommended improving the training standards of medics, paramedics and nurses in the country and bringing reforms in the regulatory bodies to provide better healthcare to the people.

Vice Chancellor HSA Prof. Shahzad Ali Khan said they along with IPRI were trying to prepare a comprehensive report on health security and healthcare reforms, and with the input from the former government officials, the finalized report would be forwarded to the Parliament’s Standing Committees On Health and the Parliamentarians for the consideration and implementation. “Even in the US, spending on the primary-care is around 5 percent so the same is the situation in many developed countries of the world but we need to make changes in our health policy in accordance with our needs”, he added.

CEO of the Sehat Sahulat Program said Balochistan was going to join the Sehat Sahulat Program from next month while United Nations had agreed to finance the health insurance for over 1.4 million Afghan refugees living in the country. President IPRI Dr Raza Muhammad said they were trying to come up with a comprehensive report on health security in Pakistan to provide it to the policymakers for implementation.