‘Karachi’s health facilities benefiting over 40m people annually but not being upgraded’

Deploring that both federal and provincial governments have neglected the healthcare needs of Karachiites for last many years, health experts and political leaders have called for bringing stakeholders in the health sector to a platform and come up with a strategy to compel the authorities to provide basic health services and facilities, clean drinking water and a healthy environment to the people.

Speaking at a dialogue on ‘Healthcare in Karachi: Challenges and Solution’ held on Monday under the ‘Rebuild Karachi’ programme of the Jamaat-e-Islami, health experts and political leaders said not a single tertiary-care health facility had been established in Karachi in the last 50 years despite a fivefold increase in the population. They added that in the absence of a universal health coverage scheme, people had to spend thousands of rupees on their healthcare needs.

Health experts, including Prof Muhammad Wasey from the AKU, Prof Iqbal Afridi, Prof Tariq Rafi, PIMA Karachi President Abdullah Muttaqi, Prof Naila Tariq, neurologist Dr Abdul Malik, Dr Saqib Ansari, health journalist Muhammad Waqar Bhatti, Dr Hakeem Jokhio, Asim Bashir from the IBA, Dr Minhaj Qidwai and Dr Azra Jamil, expressed their views at the health conference.

Jamat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi Amir Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman, who hosted the dialogue on the healthcare situation in Karachi, said that despite receiving hundreds of billions of rupees in the form of revenue from Karachi, both the federal and provincial governments were not willing to provide basic facilities and services, including health care, which was evident from the fact that not a single tertiary-care health facility had been established in Karachi in the last 50 years.

“Instead, the existing health facilities are being ruined and people are forced to seek health services at the health institutions being run by NGOs like Indus Hospital, Alkhidmat and other free-of-charge health facilities. Both the federal and provincial governments are hiding their performances behind the charity and welfare work being done by NGOs and philanthropists,” he added.

Hafiz Naeem vowed to bring all the stakeholders in Karachi to one platform to bring about reforms in the health sector, and said the JI would not let the rulers deprive the people of their basic needs and rights anymore.

“The city government led-by Nazim (mayor) Naimatullah Khan established the Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases (KICH), which was later destroyed by the mafia, and now it is being taken over by the Sindh government, which would fill it with people from other cities of Sindh just to gain political mileage,” he said.

Eminent neurologist Prof Muhammad Wasey from the Aga Khan University Hospital said health was the most neglected area in Karachi where 30-40 million people annually availed medical services Besides, he said, people used the city’s facilities from other provinces of Pakistan as well as from Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, but the city’s health infrastructure was not being improved as compared to its growing burden.

“Not only the provincial and federal governments, but also local bodies as well as the Railways, police, armed forces and other institutions are running their own health facilities in addition to the private sector, which is catering to the health needs of around 60 to 70 per cent of the people. NGOs are also running their own facilities, but there is no coordination among these health facilities.”

Dr Wasey said Karachi’s health infrastructure was larger than the health systems of over 150 countries, and around 1,000 billion rupees were spent to meet the healthcare needs of the people. He added that despite such a huge infrastructure, it seemed that there existed no health policy to govern the health sector in the city and meet the healthcare needs of its people as well as visitors from other cities and countries.

Prof Tariq Rafi, former vice chancellor of Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU), spoke about preventive measures and deplored that no attention was being paid to prevention from diseases. H said that by providing clean drinking water, many waterborne diseases could be prevented, while improvement in lifestyle and the provision of a clean environment could protect people from many non-communicable diseases.

“As far as the issue of the shortage of doctors is concerned, it is due to 87 per cent female medical students, of whom 50 per cent don’t practise medicine because they are forced to study in the medical colleges by their parents. And of the remaining 50 per cent female students, many of them don’t want to work in most of medical specialities at night or go to peripheries and other cities of the province,” he said, adding that billions of rupees were spent on these doctors, but they did not practise later.

Renowned psychiatrist Prof Iqbal Afridi said social inequalities and injustices as well as an unnatural lifestyle were leading causes of mental illnesses, but he deplored that Karachi seriously lacked mental health facilities.

Noted paediatric hematologist Prof Saqib Ansari called for the implementation of preventive measures from thalassaemia, while cancer specialist Dr Shamvil Ashraf from Indus Hospital said there was not a single comprehensive cancer health facility in Karachi where all services were available under one roof.