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Govt asked to involve experts in preparing health policy

Bureau Report — Published May 07, 2015 07:19am

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PESHAWAR: Experts have urged the government to involve professional people in formulation of health policies to improve health indicators and benefit the patients to a desired level.

"Policies are being made by non-professionals which tend to fail. Professionals' involvement improves patients' care," Prof Najib ul Haq, the dean of faculty of medicine at Peshawar Medical College (PMC), told a seminar.

Professionals should influence government's policies by coordinated fight for the patients' rights and make long term impact on health delivery system. "We shouldn't get discouraged at the wrong policies of the government but should continuously lay emphasis that policies be devised in the light of relevant statistics," he said.

The one-day event entitled 'Health sector issues: budget 2015-16 priorities', was organised by Prime Institute of Public Health (PIPH) at PMC to sensitise policymakers regarding allocation to health sector. The seminar also addressed by Mohammad Yasir Khan, country economist, International Growth Centre, London School of Economics, UK.

Citing a study carried out last year, he said that 68 per cent staff in the basic health units was found absent which could be improved through monetary incentives and putting in place monitoring system. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said, 30 per cent of BHUs faced problems of absenteeism.

Speakers say presence of staff at health units can be ensured through monetary incentives

He said that well-designed policies should be reflective of local culture and supported by politicians to benefit patients. In Lahore, performance of vaccinators improved after they were given smart phones, he said. One vaccinator covered 150 houses which increased to 175, he added.

Dr Ihsanul Haq, the director of Health Policy and Research Unit of PIPH, said that Pakistan ranked third among the countries where people died of preventable diseases. Forty per cent of deaths could be prevented, he said.

The World Bank had provided statistics of 100 years of 12 countries to the policymakers to analyse the same and make pragmatic approach to cope with burden of diseases, he said. Life-expectancy at birth was also the lowest in Pakistan, he said, adding that even Bangladesh improved its health indicators through better policies while in Pakistan the situation with regard to health indicators continued to deteriorate.

Dr Ihsan said that Pakistan topped the list with highest neonatal mortality rate and stayed second on the list of countries with most infant mortality rate. Lowest immunisation coverage and highest tuberculosis incidence could be curtailed if they pursued practical approach, he added.

He said that prevention of diseases was far cheaper than treatment as even the US government failed to provide health cost to the people via health insurance schemes. One third of the population didn't have sanitation facilities which brought host of avoidable ailments, he said.

Dr Ihsan said that people didn't use primary healthcare facilities, which were meant to prevent diseases at the primary level because people preferred to visit private facilities. Non-usage of BHUs and other first-level health facilities led to patients' load on tertiary care facilities, he said.

Dr Javed Pervez, programme manager of the district health information system (DHIS) of provincial health department, said they had been collecting data about diseases' prevalence from all the 26 districts of the province.

The programme started in 2002, was aimed furnishing data to the health department regarding incidence of different diseases so that relevant measures could be initiated, he said.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2015