Daily Times

Delivery of quality health care always improves a nation’s well-being, mindfulness, and life expectancy, which could positively affect economic and social growth. That’s why health care in Pakistan is a subject of interest to me. One of my objectives is to edify how we can embed leadership and emotional intelligence in healthcare to patient-centred care.

The rapid changes in our fragmented and volatile world are having a blunt impact on the necessity and future of the medical industry. However, the 21st century has the most advanced medical technology, business intelligence engines and other health informatics tools compared to any previous century. As a result, modern healthcare systems have become abstract farmland that cultivates practices and advancements to heal humans in the never-ending battle of mankind against the unconquered regime of diagnostics, prognoses, and diseases.

Today, the British healthcare system ranks as one of the best systems in the world, which is not only recognised for premium clinical healthcare, but also for its picturesque landscape to champion inclusiveness, equality, and cohesion. Everyone matters, working together and making a difference are the key architectures of the British health care system, which assemble to treat a patient as a human, not a number.

As ever, the grim situation of the healthcare sector in Pakistan embodies the nation’s diminishing trust that goes far beyond people. The healthcare delivery system of Pakistan is very complex and outdated. Forlornly, the dark shades of unsafe medical treatment, morbidity, and mortality of patients due to adverse clinical events, misdiagnoses, surgical complications, and slow dissemination of advanced medical research with the total blackout of clinical governance continue to blight the entire healthcare enterprise of Pakistan.

Fundamentally, the farmlands of healthcare in Pakistan neither blossom flowers nor embrace a perfume to heal alienated

Fundamentally, the farmlands of healthcare in Pakistan neither blossom flowers nor embrace a perfume to heal alienated. Rather, they makes more people sick than they heal. Consequently, patients have lost their faith due to disturbing cases of clinical negligence, erroneous diagnoses, safeguarding issues and clinicians’ transgression, which have become a platitude in every corner of Pakistan.

In the race to develop efficient healthcare technologies, decision support systems and skilled healthcare workforce, the developed nations have engendered a range of approaches to deliver healthcare with respect, dignity, and compassion.

Contemporary healthcare enterprises place patient safety, confidentiality and safeguarding ahead of the curve whereas the healthcare establishments in Pakistan are miles away from such values. The revolution of machine learning, precision medicine, digital technologies and reforms in reward systems have improved the overall quality of care. I believe clinicians dispense not only medicines but words that influence patient health and also affect the patient more than a therapeutic solution. At glance the clinicians are prepared to also treat with compassion; within the clinician-patient social system, the patient is moved by the words and phrases used by the healthcare workers.

We should know by now, the code of compassionate healthcare and emotional intelligence in the 21st century has transformed hospitals into care cathedrals and has landed healthcare workforces on the stage of magicians to perform wonders. Be mindful that the lack of compassion is as vulgar as the lack of tears in the patient-clinician social system.

In contrast, the lack of human compassion, socio-economic disparities, cultural barriers and social taboos have compounded the healthcare crisis in Pakistan. Our conventional system lacks modern innovative led approaches to provide more reliable and affordable clinical care to our growing population. The government hospitals are not only overloaded, short staffed and poorly equipped but also deficient in capacity to comply with the international quality standards of clinical governance, safeguarding and patient safety.

Amongst many challenges in Pakistan, the poor healthcare status of women and children is the major reason for the mortality. Still, mental health represents an area of even greater neglect. There is a worrying shortage of skilled and qualified healthcare workforce, health informatics experts, and healthcare economists.

Above all the bad news is that we will continue to endure a period of numerous emergencies with dysfunctional governments and their self-defeating approach. Will it leave us all in the dark?

We cannot ignore the fact; the healthcare industry is in dire need of cash injections from the government to invest in the field of research and development and also to upscale the infrastructure of nationwide healthcare facilities to improve their capacity and delivery of quality care.

High population growth, irregular dispersal of health professionals, untrained workforce, insufficient funding and limited ability to research and development are upsetting encryptions of the plummeting healthcare industry in Pakistan.

Crucially, access to healthcare in Pakistan is also a foremost issue for millions of people living in rural areas and facing the challenges of grinding poverty who can’t afford private care which is relatively better than government facilities.

Let me remind you, hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers in the world go above and beyond every day for their patients, staff, and community. Every extra effort they make, the extra steps they take, and the extra care they give make an immense difference in the lives of the people they touch.

Unfortunately, the situation in Pakistan is very dingy. In recent years we have unleashed an ongoing rift between doctors and the government, which has put millions of lives at risk. Governments have been accused by healthcare workers of shifting a massive amount of resources from the sick to the well. The healthcare profession is full of incredible life-changing stories which orchestrate both patients and healthcare workers to become one force to fight together.

Having said that, the systematic flaws leading the health infrastructure fallouts in wastage of resources, duplication of work and inability of health institutions to accept change warrants a very alarming future of healthcare in Pakistan. The pertinent question in Pakistan also remains whether we have a workforce, which is vigorous in the delivery of high-quality patient care, qualified in their fields, and above all, passionate about being a part of the medical profession to bring a difference to their patients’ lives.

I urge the government to take prompt initiatives to address the loopholes in the national health policy to prioritise the framework of quality and professional standards by establishing an independent National Clinical Commissioning Group to formulate the mechanism of clinical audits at a district level. To ensure clinicians are licenced to practise and regulate the quality standards, effective law is missing. We must focus on effective and efficient planning of preventative approaches through collaboration and understanding.

Similarly, leading healthcare providers and public health entities in Pakistan must also blend to emerge as intelligent healthcare enterprises to provide the best care solutions, which can play a dynamic role in the upscaling of the healthcare paradigm in Pakistan. I hope a new harvest fragrance will bloom the orchard, reviving it to life; out-casting tiredness to heal, pausing our fears and letting out a symphony to calm anxieties.

The writer is based in UK, and has specialization in health informatics from Johns Hopkins University