Doctors, chemists, NGOs, legislators, and other healthcare players have urged the government to change its budget objectives and set more public health funding.
Attending a Wednesday conference, participants encouraged the government to stop foreign loan repayments and cut non-development costs, freeing the saved money for public health and education.
The group opposed any form of health system privatization. Instead, it advocated constructing more hospitals, medical colleges, and nursing schools to meet the growing population’s healthcare needs.
They also demanded that medicines be sold under generic names instead of branded ones to lower prices and curb the malpractice of pharmaceutical companies that bribe medical professionals with sponsored trips and expensive gifts to meet sales targets. This step, they believed, would improve the quality and reduce the cost of medicines.
Participants of the meeting, organized by the Labour Education Foundation, included Dr. Tehsin Azhar from the Pakistan Medical Association, Dr. Kalimullah from the Pakistan Pharmacists Association, Mohsin Khan from the Punjab Druggists Association, Muhammad Usman from the Young Pharmacists’ Association, PML-N leader and chairman of Soch Muhammad Mehdi, Haqooq-e-Khalq Party leader Farooq Tariq, alternative medicine industry representative Haji Younas, and pharma industry employees union secretary Syed Shabbir Hussain.
| Category | Amount (PKR) |
|---|---|
| Total Health Budget | 1,000 billion |
| Federal Health Budget | 300 billion |
| Provincial Health Budgets | |
| – Punjab | 450 billion |
| – Sindh | 150 billion |
| – Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | 80 billion |
| – Balochistan | 20 billion |
| Special Allocations | |
| – Lady Willingdon Hospital Reconstruction | 1.3 billion |
| – Services Hospital Revamp | 801 million |
They demanded that medical professionals prescribe exclusively generic medications and that bio-equivalence tests be mandated to refute the fallacy that pharmaceutical corporations manufacture superior medications.
The stakeholders urged legislators to increase the public health budget to 6% of GDP and to increase their awareness of healthcare rights, the benefits of generic medications, the negative impacts of pharma monopolies, and the necessity of effective healthcare laws and implementation.
They called for a moratorium on private practice by government-employed medical practitioners. They highlighted a need for coordination between the health education sector’s governing body and the medicine registration regulator, significantly costing healthcare seekers.
The group’s primary objectives were to increase the number of filter clinics/disease screening centers to alleviate the pressure on tertiary care hospitals, incentivize population control to reduce the burden on existing health facilities and promote public awareness of disease prevention.
In addition, they urged the prioritization of research and development financing to identify disease patterns in various societal segments and to develop more effective medicines and vaccines. They also advocated subsidizing imports of raw materials to facilitate the production of affordable medicines.
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