Betterment of ailing humanity: WHO, allied bodies should formulate policies: Mamnoon

President Mamnoon Hussain on Monday said that the World Health Organization (WHO) and allied organizations should formulate policies keeping in view the ground realities and issues of different regions as well as inform the institutions which were unaware of the problems for the betterment of ailing humanity.
Speaking at the inaugural session of 64th Regional Conference of World Health Organization here, the President said unfortunately, there was still a huge difference in the situations of the developed and underdeveloped world in the matters of resources, lifestyles and availability of health-care facilities.
In order to end the differences, he said, there was a need to invest more in the sector as well as a lot more was to be done to reform certain other concepts.
He said the people of many third world countries were facing issues like malnutrition, food shortage and environmental pollution due to lack of resources which deeply affected the medical diagnosis and procedure.
These factors, he added, were ignored by donor countries and institutions due to certain other reasons apart from the trends of globalization which either affected the endeavours related to medicine and health in the third world or the expected results were not achieved.
President Mamnoon was confident that the WHO's conference would set the course for taking important decisions in terms of reviewing available services as well as provision of more facilities to the people with regard to the situation of healthcare and treatment in member countries which would open up new avenues for development in the field of health in the region.
"Our view regarding the provision of healthcare and treatment facilities to the people is based on positivity and farsightedness. It has been guaranteed in the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan that no one will be allowed to indulge in any action which may pose threat to human life," he added.
The President said that The Prime Minister's Health Insurance Programme was a result of that vision of elders under which the poor and low income segments would be able to avail the facility of free treatment from the public and private health institutions.
This programme, in terms of its utility and expansion, he said, was so vast and efficacious that certain friendly countries had expressed their desire to benefit from it which was an honour. Similarly, he said, "we were proud the way Pakistan played a leading role at the global level for providing prosthetic devices to affected people suffering from any physical disability."
The President expressed his pleasure that after the approval of resolution presented by Pakistan by the Executive Board of WHO next year, the disabled around the world would have the extraordinary facility of availing the medical devices in accordance with their need.