Health issues in Pakistan.

Health issues in Pakistan are administrated mainly in the private sector which accounts for approximately 80% of all out patient visits. the public sector was until recently led by the ministry of health. which is the department for provision of medical services, responsible to frame the health policies at a national level. each of the four provinces of Pakistan has its respective health department under the supervision of health minister of that province controlled by directors and deputy directors.
we have a number of diseases in Pakistan which causes death including malaria, diarrhea, dengue fever, tuberculosis, cancer , HIV/AIDS,hepatitis and last but not the least polio. these diseases are controllable but sometimes it causes death because poor patients cannot afford expensive medication.
 There are countless hospitals in Pakistan but despite the death toll is increasing day by day . reasons :
expensive medicines hospitals were being supplied with expensive drugs . the prescribed medicine has to be given to most of the patients on a regular basis which is a tough task for a low income man. patients have to pay their private physician enormous amounts of money just to get a check up. this is the reason why the majority of the people are left with poor medical services. they have to stand in long queues to consult a government doctor and are offered poor medical treatment.

Many Pakistani doctors choose to migrate to other countries contributing brain drain and chronic skills shortage in country. according to survey there are over 17,000 doctors of Pakistani origin. Pakistan is the fourth highest source of international medical graduate doctors in U.S. migration of doctors revolves around the reasons of better structure of medical education, desire for better income.

Thousands of doctors across Punjab working at public hospitals resigned from their positions and many others went on strike after the provincial government failed to meet their demands for better compensation. Hospitals throughout the province reported severe difficulties and even deaths as a result of being desperately short staffed.

During late Jan  2012 , a fake medicine crisis at the Punjab institute of cardiology (PIC) Pakistan claimed the lives of over 100 heart patients according to various reports the incident involved patients who had been receiving treatment at hospital. the spurious medicine triggered a serious adverse reaction by depositing itself in the bone marrow and ending the body's resistance. according to sources, these medicines were also not being tested from the laboratories due to lack of selling and supply of country's manufacturer medicines companies , thousand of the workers have been rendered jobless.

In Pakistan major chunk of population is living below the poverty line in such scenario where from food to petrol everywhere fire of inflation has engulfed the poor man, the recently price hike in medicines has added another worry in the list of poor masses. recently the national and international pharmaceutical companies knocked at the door of health ministry to raise the prices where health ministry respond immediately without considering the impact of higher prices of medicines on common masses. the increase will give the people more to criticize against the ruling government in the backdrop of already ongoing corruption scandals.
                             
Pakistan's health care system is inadequate , inefficient and expensive public sector along with a mixed unregulated private sector. these poor conditions in the health sector may be attributed to a number of factors like poverty, malnutrition and unequal access to health facilities. the poor in Pakistan is not only deprived of financial resources but also lack access to secondary and tertiary health care services. according to WHO international standards the ratio of doctors to nurses should be 1:3 however this is reversed in the case of Pakistan ratio of doctors to nurses is 3:1 in Pakistan  according to PSLM as many as 77 percent households consult the private sector against only 23 percent to the public sector. the health issues in Pakistan are rising on its peak because lack of awareness, poverty and illiteracy. WHO sponsors programs to prevent and treat such diseases. as we have number of hospitals Government and ministry of health needs to be arranging , conducting health awareness programs and increased number of doctors so that middle class man and a poor patient can visit to doctor easily. these sectors needs to be regulated and monitored by Government.