Healthcare and Pakistan

The health of a nation is directly proportional to the type of health care access it offers. The healthcare access in turn is mainly dependent upon the amount and manner of information available and resources allocated.
The people in the Third World still face an uneven quality and access to health care. For the public in the Third World the grind of other pressing issues like food, shelter, and security often overshadow occasional health bumps, and that is one main reason that healthcare is often neglected. The very same is applicable to Pakistan, being a third world country.
Due to a number of factors, including it’s rugged, diverse geography and civil unrest, many communities within Pakistan face severe limitations in their access to medical care.
These problems persist mostly outside of rural areas, where travel is often a major limiting factor. Squatter communities, often made up of mixed-nationality, speaking different languages, conflict-displaced populations, pose similar challenges through lack of health infrastructure.
One of the most important factors, as in some other developing countries, is that the healthcare mechanism of Pakistan seeks relief from the stress of morbidity and mortality in secondary and tertiary healthcare services. To worsen the situation, the much-stressed secondary and tertiary healthcare system is mainly concentrated in large urban centers and most of the time it’s affordable only for the affluent class. Even this urban-based system is geared to be only a curative healthcare mechanism.
Published statistics about morbidity and mortality lead to the inescapable judgment that the people of Pakistan are not ill and dying because of unique illnesses, they die of illnesses common throughout the world, dysentery, parasites, childhood diseases, birthing problems and malnutrition. It is apparent that Pakistan has avoidable deaths and unnecessary suffering, not because of enigmatic illnesses, but overwhelmingly because inappropriate health behavior is widespread, and the most basic of primary health care services are not accessible to a large percentage of the population.
While many Pakistanis suffer from physical and emotional problems, there is no adequate health care system in place. Many pregnant women remain anemic and there is a high infant mortality rate. Children still suffer from malnutrition because of pervasive poverty. Many patients with emotional problems only see a psychiatrist when they get violent and have a nervous breakdown. Mental illness is still surrounded by visible stigma. Because of lack of health education and proper information there is less emphasis on prevention. The high expense of getting proper healthcare alone puts a damper on the frequency and extent of medical care sought by the general public.

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