Development funding for the health sector in Sindh has been increased by 32 percent in the year 2005 raising the year's allocation from Rs 600 million to Rs 795 million for provincial schemes alone. This was stated by Sindh Additional Chief Secretary (Development) Ghulam Sarwar Khero here while inaugurating a workshop on 'Health Sector Financing', jointly organised by Sindh Health Department and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Sarwar Khero said: "The fundamental purpose of development is to improve the overall quality of life of the people with a major emphasis on improving their health status."
"As such over the last five years, there has been a consistent rise in government spending on health, a major gap yet remains in this area of investment, as evidenced by the low per capita spending on health in the public sector," he pointed out.
Khero underscored the need to bridge the identified gap through all means and resources at the government disposal in the coming years so as to meet the required health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015.
He said: "It is necessary to analyse the existing situation of health investment in public sector of the country and province to delineate the role of various partners and their relative contributions."
The Acting WHO Country Representative to Pakistan, Dr Wajihullah Mojjadidi, highlighted the importance of placing health at the centre of development.
"Poor countries have been fighting the shackles of poverty with very little impact on the percentage of poor people in the country," he said and pointed out that the WHO's Commission for Macroeconomics and Health (CMH) advocated safety nets against poverty-traps such as poor health, nutrition, education, water and sanitation, and access to health services.
"Beyond these are the natural disasters and global crises that affect the poor and again must be avoided by creating safety nets in every country such as health insurance, social security and pension funds.
TASK FORCE: He informed the participants that a Task Force for the CMH had been set up to support countries with advocacy, analyses, implementation of the macroeconomics and health strategy, and tracking outcomes in six countries of the Eastern Mediterranean Region, including Pakistan.