Issues in Pakistan’s Health Sector

The health sector in Pakistan is riddled with numerous problems, constraints and contradictions. There is the problem of a lack of health facilities in rural areas, of unemployed doctors despite the acute shortage of trained medical personnel in the country, of ‘brain drain’ of medical graduates, of the inability of medical graduates to work in simple rural settings and their dependence on “sophisticated” technology of pharmaceutical companies enriching themselves at the expense of the common man, and of a lack of potable water and adequate sewerage in slums and rural areas. The list can be expanded but the stark fact is that most of the people have little or no access to adequate health facilities and are faced with a high incidence of disease.