Prime Institute of Public Health (PIPH) organized a session in continuation of its online lecture series on Saturday February 13, 2016. Dr. Sania Nishtar who is a renowned public health figure in Pakistan was the guest speaker. The theme of the lecture was “Future Trends in Pakistan’s Healthcare: Challenges and Opportunities.” The session was moderated by Dr. Zeeshan (Director Postgraduate Programs, PIPH).
During the opening remarks Dr. Zeeshan welcomed all the participants and provided them a brief introduction of the speaker. He also delivered a short presentation on the background of the MPH (Health Management and Policy) program offered at PIPH.
Talking to the audience Dr. Sania Nishtar said, “If we take any healthcare indicator we’ll see a huge gap between urban and rural areas. There has been improvement in the last decade, but of not any significant value.” She emphasized on the importance of narrowing down this gap.
She also talked about the different parameters of health system performance assessment. “The first parameter of health system performance assessment is equity, but we haven’t been able to achieve it. This tells us that people how have the means to buy healthcare services will access it from the market for a cost and those who don’t have the ability will be left behind. The second indicator is that of financial risk protection, which means that when people are faced with major healthcare expenditure they should not suffer catastrophic stress. Lastly there is responsiveness and satisfaction with respect to healthcare system.”
The lecture was followed by a question answer session and concluded with a thank you note from Dr. Zeeshan.
