Pharma Veterans

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Facilities for Disabled – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 983 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 983 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Antoni Shkraba Credit: Eren Li Credit: Mehmet Turgut Kirkgoz Credit: Sany Nur Credit: Shvets Production World Health Organization – WHO – states that people with disabilities, throughout the life course, have unequal access to healthcare services, have greater unmet healthcare needs, and experience poorer levels of health compared with the general population. As a result, people with disabilities have poorer health outcomes than the general population.  People with disabilities frequently experience preventable diseases and report high incidence of risk behavior such as obesity, smoking, and physical inactivity. It means a par...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Healthcare Professionals – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 982 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 982 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Dr Adel Credit: Funkcinės Terapijos Centras Credit: Haguy Paulemon Credit: Mikhail Nilov Credit: Saulo Leite Credit: Yan Krukau A healthcare professional, or healthcare worker is a provider of healthcare treatment and advice based on formal training and experience. “Health professionals maintain health in humans through the application of the principles and procedures of evidence-based medicine and caring. Health professionals study, diagnose, treat and prevent human illness, injury and other physical and mental impairments in accordance with the needs of the populations they serve. They advise on or apply preventive and curative...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Regulatory Structure – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 981 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 981 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Edward Jenner Credit: Andrea Piacquadio Credit: Imad Clicks As is the case in other government functions, there are several institutions who are supposed to regulate various components of healthcare. After 18th Amendment, health was devolved to provinces. So, now there are federal and provincial bodies supposed to regulate healthcare. The state of healthcare, however, is anything but satisfactory. The major reason is that the regulatory bodies do not coordinate with one another and keep blowing their own trumpets without achieving anything concrete. The biggest problem with government agencies and particularly regulatory bodies is th...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Burden of Disease – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 980 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 980 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com . Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Cliff Booth Credit: Marcus Aurelius Credit: Mateus Souza Credit: Rene Terp Credit: Shotpot Burden of Disease Burden of Disease – BoD – is the impact of health problem as measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators. It is often quantified in terms of Quality-Adjusted-Life-Years – QALY – or Disability-Adjusted-Life-Years – DALY. Both of these metrics quantify the number of years lost due to disability, or disease, or years lived with disability/disease. One DALY can be thought of as one year of healthy life lost. In simpler words, the sum of mortality and morbidity is called the burden of disease because both c...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Pharmacists and Pharmacies – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 979 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 979 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: BYB BYB Credit: Gustavo Fring Credit: Maria Orlova Pharmacists There has been an exponential increase in the number of pharmacy departments all over the country. Every private university and medical college are now offering pharmacy degree also. The number of pharmacy graduates qualifying every year has therefore increased greatly. Pharmacy Council is the legal body that registers pharmacists which makes them eligible to practice pharmacy and seek a job as pharmacist. Pharmacy Council website says the number of registered pharmacists in their record is 59,586; pharmacy technicians are 16,769, which is a diploma level education....

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Private Sector – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 978 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 978 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Anna Shvets Credit: Los Muertos Crew Credit: RDNE Stock Project In a study that the Lancet conducted, healthcare in Pakistan currently ranks 154th out of 195 countries in terms of overall performance. This included both public and private healthcare. I would start with the clarification that private healthcare sector, while doing a good job, is not providing world-class treatment as is claimed by them. Private healthcare outperforms their public counterparts, as measured by the overall quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction, latter being trumpeted more. I had quoted earlier also that the business generated by private hospitals is e...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – Public Sector – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 977 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 977 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Civil Hospital Karachi Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center Karachi Mayo Hospital Lahore Healthcare is among the basic rights granted by the constitution. UHC – Universal Health Coverage – is also among the UN Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs.  Having said that, healthcare system in every country must keep evolving due to growing needs of people, constantly emerging new public health challenges, and the diversity of population demographics due to rural urban migration and other factors. Public Healthcare System – PHS, comprises of public and private sectors that cater to the huge population of over 240 million. Major challenges faced by PHS i...

Healthcare Landscape in Pakistan – General Information – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 976 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 976 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Anna Shvets Credit: Laura James Credit: Max Mishin Healthcare is among the basic rights granted by the constitution. UHC – Universal Health Care is among the Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations, and Pakistan is also a signatory to the SDGs. Successive governments have had a lukewarm attitude towards healthcare and did not go beyond announcing few new projects for public consumption. The most recent and successful effort was Sehat Sahulat Program by the last government. Please ignore politics for a moment. The program, in its design and spirit, was excellent but did have issues in execution, mainly related to corruption a...