Health issues in Pakistan:-
By: Sana Nadeem
Tags: Amal Academy, Amal Fellowship

“HEALTH IS WEALTH, WITHOUT HEALTH, A MAN CAN NOT LIVE A PROPER LIFE. THAT'S WHY BEING HEALTHY IS IMPORTANT for us”

Background: -

Pakistan has made struggle in improving the health issues of people since after its independence. Health survey submitting its report in 1946 observed that.

“Environmental sanitation in the country was at a low level, malnutrition, inadequate health services.”

Lack of general and health education was also a cause of health issues. The initial problem of inheritance was a lack of medical staff, medicine, vaccines, and sera. The important steps for health issues had taken by different organizations like [DG-health, GOP] in 1947–1951.

Quality of Medical Education: -

Medical and dental colleges, Nursing schools, and public health hospitals are properly launched all over Pakistan. But the orientation of the young graduates is required to enhance the abilities and conviction to serve their community and especially for those who belong to poor families and not able to pay their hospital dues.

Research in the Health sector: -

Research is an important component for undergraduates and postgraduates’ students but unfortunately research not be implemented in all medical institutes of Pakistan.

Human resource development: -

Progress in human development is not the same/matched as the principle of the demand-supply mechanism. Human resource development is the framework for helping employees develop their skills, knowledge, and abilities which in turn improves an organization's effectiveness.

The below data is showing the scarcity of health manpower which needs to be addressed at an urgent level.

Emerging communicable disease: -

communicable means that those diseases can be transmitted through contact with an infected person. These diseases include HIV/ AIDS, dengue fever, bird flu, SARS, covid-19, and drug resistance cases of pulmonary tuberculosis are on increase. The prevalence of such diseases is to be observed at the resource allocation level.

Emerging non-communicable diseases:

Noncommunicable means that those diseases cannot be transmitted through contact with an infected person. These diseases include CHD (coronary heart disease), Diabetes, Hypertension, Cancer, Accidents and Mental illness have emerged as a threat owing to change in the lifestyle of the community.

Environmental Factors:-

Degradation of the ecosystem, deforestation rapid industrialization, sophisticated technologies, automobiles exhaust, changing lifestyles with excessive use of refrigerators, air conditioners, cosmetics, perfumes, deodorants are increasing the greenhouse effect by producing gases like CFCs, SO2 & NO2, ozone depletion in the stratosphere and increasing levels at troposphere, causing environmental pollution, global warming, and rise in sea level with impending danger for human and aquatic life.

Degradation of the Ecosystem:-

Ecosystem Degradation — including deforestation, land-use change, and agricultural intensification — further compounds the problem by undermining water and other resources essential for reducing disease transmission and mitigating the impact of emerging infectious diseases.

Automobile Exhaust:

Exhaust from cars, motorbikes, trucks cause asthma in children and may cause other respiratory illnesses and heart problems resulting in deaths, an independent institute that focuses on vehicle-related air pollution, has concluded.

Poor Nutrition:-

If we defined it as poor nutrition it can lead to reduced immunity, increased susceptibility to disease, impaired physical and mental development, and reduced productivity. poor nutrition divided into three main forms.

1.MALNUTRITION:-

Malnutrition means ‘badly nourished’, but is more than a measure of what we eat or fail to eat. Malnutrition is characterized by inadequate intake of protein, energy, and micronutrients and by frequent infections and diseases. Starved of the right nutrition, people will die from common infections like measles or diarrhea. Malnutrition is measured not by how much food is eaten but by physical measurements of the body — weight or height — and age and laboratory analysis of blood.

2. Undernourishment:

Under-nourishment is used to describe the status of people whose food intake does not include enough calories (energy) to meet minimum physiological needs for an active life. At present, there are 1.02 billion undernourished people worldwide, most of them in developing countries.

3. Unbalanced Malnutrition:

Unbalanced Malnutrition is the nutrition that is where eating certain types of foods most of the other such as carbohydrates or fat, leading to the emergence of chronic diseases, including obesity and heart disease.

Poverty:-

Poverty and low-income status is the main cause of the disease. poverty is associated with a variety of health issues, including shorter life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, and higher death rates for the 14 leading causes of death. … The study found that low-income status populations suffer disparities in every state. where I live, I observed that most of the people who belong to poor families and not able to pay their hospital dues are die/suffering from different kinds of diseases due to lack of nutrition and high expenditures of cure/ treatment.

How to solve this problem/overcome it .??????

we can solve this problem if people and government do their duties at a time. Responsibility for health should be a collaborative effort among individuals and the societies in which they live. Individuals should care for their own health and help to pay for their own healthcare, and societies should promote health and help to finance the costs of healthcare. Through access to care tends to dominate discussions of social responsibility for health and often receives the largest portion of society’s resources, one should not forget the importance of environmental health, public health, and health research.

These other strategies can be highly cost‐effective and may even encourage personal responsibility, by creating social and physical environments that enable individuals to maintain health and avoid disease. Recognizing the importance of these other methods still leaves important ethical and political questions unanswered, such as how to decide the appropriate level of government funding for access to care, public health, environmental health, and health research. I want to encourage others to address these issues and this can only be done by collaboration and communication with others.

let us please try our best to overcome health issues in Pakistan.

Jazaka ALLAH…….