Pakistan’s health care system in 2020: Hospitals, doctors increase
Pakistan’s spending on health at the federal level was 1.2% of its GDP, much below the WHO's recommendation of 5%
June 11, 2021
The government released the Economic Survey 2020-21 on Thursday, which captures amongst other things, the state of Pakistan’s healthcare system in the last one year.
So, what does it look like? Here is what the Survey notes:
Public hospitals
In the year 2020, there were a total of 1,282 public hospitals in the country. That means that three new hospitals were added to the health infrastructure last year, as in the year 2019 there were 1,279 government-run hospitals.
Healthcare workers
There were 245,987 registered doctors, 27,360 registered dentists and 116,659 registered nurses in 2020. The numbers have gone up since 2019 when there were 220,829 registered doctors, both at private and public hospitals, 22,595 dentists and 108,474 nurses.
Life expectancy
The country’s life expectancy has increased from 66.9 years in 2017 to 67.3 years in 2019.
Population growth
There has been a decrease in the population growth rate, which has declined from 2% annually in 2018 to 1.9% in 2019.
However, Pakistan’s contraceptive prevalence rate in 2019 stayed stagnant at 34 %.
Health expenditure
In 2020, Pakistan’s spending on health at the federal level was 1.2% of its GDP, much below the World Health Organization’s recommendation that countries should spend 5% of its GDP on health.
