Category Archives: Health

Education pitfalls

Development and Poverty, Education, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

HEALTH or education? Which should be the government’s first priority? I would say education and health. Both have a symbiotic relationship. A government that recognises the importance of its social capital and the value of its human resources will address both sectors.

Good health facilitates good education, just as good education should promote health by teaching people the basics of preventive medicine and health care. But when a state is strapped for cash and focuses on other matters that it erroneously believes to be important for its national security, it tends to neglect ‘frivolous’ issues like education and health. Continue reading Education pitfalls →

Our population time bomb

Health, Population, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

PAKISTAN’S Population Census Organisation’s website has a population clock on the home page which gave the country’s population as 179,850,379 on Tuesday — an average increase of 9,700 every day.

According to the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS), Islamabad, the country’s population was 133.3 million in 1998 when the last census was held. This comes to a whopping increase of 34.8 per cent in 13 years (2.6 per cent per annum) which surprisingly has gone unnoticed. In effect we have slipped down from the two per cent (NIPS) or 1.8 per cent (World Bank) figure we were given as the growth rate for 2010. Continue reading Our population time bomb →

Making deals with the devil

Development and Poverty, Health, Organ Trade and Donation

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN his recently published memoirs, Jagtay Lamhay, Justice Haziqul Khairi, retired chief of the Federal Sharia Court, recalls his judgment upholding the transplantation law in Pakistan. The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Ordinance (2007) had been challenged by some surgeons on the ground that it violated the Sharia.

Justice Khairi writes that the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) country chief in Pakistan, Dr Khalif Bille, described this as a “great” judgment. Soon thereafter the two Houses of parliament passed unanimously an act by the same name in 2010 to replace the ordinance. On that occasion the Assembly gave a standing ovation to Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi, the director of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation and the person responsible for spearheading the 15-year campaign for legislation to regulate organ transplantation and check organ trade in Pakistan. The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act (THOTA) was acknowledged by WHO as the best law on this subject in the world. Continue reading Making deals with the devil →

Physician, heal thyself

Development and Poverty, Economy, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

AS inflation spirals in Pakistan, the one most seriously affected is the common man. Decent healthcare is said to be beyond the reach of the overwhelming majority. But one man’s meat is another man’s poison and some are benefiting from the misery of the poor.

One beneficiary of this state of affairs is the pharmaceutical sector. The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) website describes its growth of the past decade as a “success story”. It goes on to add: “About half the population has no access to modern medicines. Clearly, this presents an opportunity.”

According to the PPMA, the value of pharmaceuticals sold in Pakistan was over $1.4bn in 2007 and is expected to exceed $2.3bn in 2012. Sixty-five per cent of this comes from private spending. Continue reading Physician, heal thyself →

Remembering Naveed Anwar

Health, Organ Trade and Donation

By Zubeida Mustafa

NOT many may recall Naveed Anwar today because when he slipped into the valley of death 14 years ago he went silently without making a splash in the media.

At a time when the Transplant Society of Pakistan is launching its deceased organ donation campaign we should be paying homage to Naveed and the four others* who followed his pioneering trail. They conclusively established that our society is capable of unbelievable generosity and care, even in the bad times we live in. Continue reading Remembering Naveed Anwar →