Health in Pakistan
IRNI reports that “health has become a luxury” in Pakistan with less that 130,000 doctors and approximatley 12,000 facilities to support a nation of over 160 miliion people.
The World Health Organsiation summarises Pakistan’s health challenges as:
- Low health expenditures and low public investment in the health sector; low focus on prevention; main expenditures for salaries and inequity in allocation of resources
- Low utilization rates in public system and inadequate institutional frameworks for outsourcing of services
- Heavy reliance on private sector and insufficient regulation and certification systems
- Health referral pyramid not respected
- Insufficient health district mapping and planning, inadequately planned human resources for health
- Transfer of critical responsibilities from federal to provincial level due to the devolution process (18th Constitutional Amendment)
- Recent and abrupt changes in the key decision makers within the Federal Ministry of Health
LRBT’s healthcare provision is contrary to Pakistan’s general system.
Graham Layton Trust (GLT) transfers UK raised funds to LRBT directly providing them full control of how the organisation and service is adminstered. LRBT through its purpose built and appropriately equipped hospitals provide comprehensive eye-care, ranging from simple refraction to the most advanced retinal surgery and corneal transplants. LRBT have highly skilled doctors supported with cutting edge technology. LRBT provide an end to end service thereby ensuring anti-corrupt processes and systems. LRBT manage the growth and expansion of existing facilities as well as new builds and ensures that all medical professionals receive the state of the art training from within or outside of Pakistan where appropriate.
Every patient, however poor, is treated with compassion and dignity. LRBT have 19 fully equiped hospitals, 55 Community Eye Care Centres and four Outreach Clinics (find a treatment centre) – as a result virtually all Pakistanis are no more than 3 hours travel away from a treatment facility.
Every day thousands of patients visit treatment centres benefiting from treatments related to:
- Refractive errors
- Diagnostic procedures including Fundus Flourescien Angiography, Optical Coherence Tomography, Field Analysis etc
- Cataract surgery
- Diabetic retinopathy
- Cornea and external eye disease
- Oculo-plastic Services
- Lacrimal (Tear Duct) disorder
- Orbital disorder
- Uveitis clinic
- Retinal disorders including vitreo-retinal surgery
- Laser treatment
- Pediatric eye care
- Low vision