Doctors Role in Organizing Health Services

Doctor Sahb… Here are some stats for you. I am giving the comparable data for the US (in brackets) so you can have some idea how the two compare.


I Pakistan there are 2000 (in US 300) people for each doctor.

50% (90%) of the people have access to safe water.

91 deaths per thousand (80 per 1 million) live births

Literacy rate is 41 % (98%) of population

Average life expectancy is 61 (76)

External debt is close to 40% of our GDP (n/a for US, but it don’t matter!)


What I am trying to say is that Physicians and scientists know jack about how to run a country, and healthcare is only a small part of running an economy. Doctors are trained to care for patient and treat the ill, and are not really trained to set health policy. Not to say that politicians are either. The input from physician community should be welcome, but only for what it is worth.

I will be interested to know if you have any insights into how to reduce the doctor to patient ratio in Pakistan. At present it is pretty ridiculous.