health care system in Pakistan china and india

Health care is the Prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and other health professionals. 

Definition of Health care system

A health system consists of all organizations, people, and actions whose primary concern is to promote, restore, or maintain health.

Health care is the Prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical wellbeing through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and other health professionals. 

Health care system requires some basic tools such as

Doctor: an individual who have enough knowledge about disease and medicine to treat infected person.

Nurse: a medical professional who assist patients and their family members

Hospital: Has important role in the country’s health system it provides complete services to population. It is also centre for training of health care professionals.

Health care condition in Pakistan and its neighbouring countries

Let’s talk about the health care condition in Pakistan and its neighbouring countries which are China, India and our country Pakistan.

According  to the CEO WORLD magazine Health Care Index 2021 these countries lie on the following positions in 89 countries while south Korea has the world’s best health care system according to that report.

19^th rank: India, 46^th rank: China, 88^th rank: Pakistan

Health care in India

As according to the report India lie on the 19^th position which is well enough in the south Asian region it means India is heading towards more betterment in their health care system and to ensure the best care and health to the population. However, everything have lacking so as to Indian health system have. India’s healthcare system is funded through government taxation. 

In 2019, the government was spending $36 billion on healthcare annually, or roughly 1.23% of its GDP. When out-of-pocket costs that patients spend for private healthcare are taken into account, the country’s total healthcare GDP equals 3.6%.

India has the largest private healthcare system in the world. It’s so pervasive that only about 20% of all healthcare services fall under the purview of public funding. Unlike many other countries, it’s not just wealthy citizens using private facilities. Much of the demand is driven by financially precarious citizens who can ill-afford to go to a private clinic. However, they feel they have no other choice in order to receive timely care.

Human nervous system

Health care condition during Pandemic

During Covid-19 india has gone through worst conditions as the graph of cases was continuously rising and there was shortage of health care resources even doctors and nurses who work as front liners in emergency situation. Almost 60% of total population of india lives in the rural areas so this is more difficult to provide services there.

Health care in China

According to the report china is on 46^th position which is a concern for the developed countries like china. With inconsistent standards between rural areas and the big cities. The country spends on health and has a relatively low number of doctors. With the largest economy on the planet, it attracts workers from all over the world but this lacking causes so many issues.

Health care in China during Pandemic

As we all know that this covid-19 virus was introduced and spreaded from the Wuhan city of china. Initially china failed to recognise and prevent the spread. This covid-19 pushed all healthcare systems into brink. So it suffered from great losses.

 Health care in Pakistan

The ability of any healthcare system to deliver good results rests on its facilities being easily accessible to patients. According to the reference of the above mentioned report Pakistan is on 88^th position, In Pakistan’s context, physical and financial inaccessibility to healthcare facilities are often described as the major hurdles that keep common public from seeking the required medical treatment. Patients at government and private hospitals are often forced for the high cost of medicines, while others from distant areas find it difficult to reach hospitals.

If we look more closely at the provision of health care in Pakistan, we can see that the country has a mixed health system that includes both public and private health care, along with charitable contributors and donor agencies.

In Pakistan, health care delivery to the consumers can be broken down into four sections,

·       Preventive 

·       Curative

·       Rehabilitative

·       promotive services.

Mishi Khan website

Health conditions in Pakistan

Pakistan is a middle income country where people can not afford private healthcare services and this is governments responsibility to provide them but unfortunately it fails to provide even basic necessities. The significant improvement in some health is result of the efforts of the public-private programmes and the contributions made the nongovernmental organizations;

Despite this health profile of Pakistan it is deeply rooted and manifested with a high population growth rate, infant and maternal mortality rates, transmittable and non-transmittable diseases

 It is pointed out that malnutrition in the rural region of Sindh, while in Balochistan 20-30 per cent of children stunted in growth and the high infant mortality there is the outcome of malnutrition and diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Currently Pakistan is suffering from the following challenges.

·       Lack of strong health management system;

·       Shortage of doctors and hospitals especially in rural areas;

·       A non-regulated private sector that essentially operates in urban sectors;

·       Weak quality control and standardization of care;

·       Lack of a coordination with the stakeholders.

·       Delay in prevention and control of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, dengue and so many.

Health care in Pakistan is identified as one of the country’s most corrupt sectors,  general surveys suggest the majority of Pakistanis are unhappy with the health services they are offered. Pakistan has no national health insurance system and 78 percent of the population pay health care expenses themselves. It is the only country in the world without a National Health Ministry. approximately only 3.2% of total GDP spends on health sector.

The lack of proactive action on the part of the public sector health care system in Pakistan has generated space for the private sector. The private sector without any doubt help to develop the much needed health care framework, and can operate to plug the gaps in the delivery of the health care facilities to those who need them urgently. Despite having profit maximization as chief goal the private sector has played an active and extensive role in the areas of both preventive and curative Services.

Spread of infectious diseases in Pakistan

A majority of infectious diseases are caused by bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Pakistan, being a developing country has a poverty rate of 30–40%, which is a significant factor that results in a high risk of spread of infectious diseases such as malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and influenza . Additionally, causes of the widespread presence of infectious diseases include poor sanitation conditions, scarcity of basic health care resources, and lack of awareness of these diseases and their severity among the local population. But in all of them lack of health care services is top most reason of the spread of these deadly disorders.

According to final report of DREF operation 2022, approx 50,000 dengue cases and 190 deaths were reported.

Similarly, Pakistan ranks 5th amongst the high burden countries in the world due to tuberculosis.  

The government should assist the private sector in the process of penetration and into the health sector, and should ensure that the non-public sector is fully regulated and is made accountable for its errors and omissions. Not only will this facilitate the delivery of high-value services, but it will also help to fill the gaps that the public sector is unable to occupy due to financial constraints and a lack of effective management.

Reforms in health care system in Pakistan

This is need of time to make reforms in health care sector to save the lives and keep the country healthy so the population can contribute in the development of the country some of them are as follows.

1)    Shift from producing health to providing health: like other countries Pakistan also focuses on curative side and producing health care instead of that step we need to shift to produce health by producing awareness in the common people about self-care personal, hygiene, take treatment on time etc

2)    “The Sehat Sahulat Programme introduced by the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has now been extended to other provinces to provide free health services to the downtrodden masses in public and private hospitals,”

Sehat card introduced by the former prime minister Imran khan is one of the reforms taken for the poor of country so they can get access to better services.