RIYADH: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday highlighted the inequities in global healthcare, calling it the first and foremost problem of the world.
Addressing a session on the Global Health Agenda during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) special meeting in Riyadh, PM Shehbaz Sharif spoke about the time he was battling with a “nasty cancer”.
“I was struck by a very nasty cancer, ‘Adenocarcinoid’, and I was flown to New York. At that time I had to pay thousands of dollars from my pocket and I wondered how many people in my country could afford this kind of expensive treatment and I said ‘not very many'”.
Speaking about the issue of global healthcare inequities, the prime minister said that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed these imbalances and gaps hugely. “Imagine global south and north, distribution of vaccines and so on and so forth,” PM Shehbaz added.
The Prime Minister then talked about the issues faced by Pakistan including climate change, which he said completely changed the landscape. “Pakistan does not contribute even a fraction of global emissions yet we are on the red list for climate change and in 2022, we faced the worst climate change-induced floods in Pakistan,” he maintained.
“Everything was devastated from schools to hospitals to land and agriculture and we had to invest hundreds of billions of rupees to rehabilitate people,” the prime minister added, questioning whether a developing country can afford to do that.
Prime Minister Shehbaz in his speech also highlighted the work done by his government when he was the chief minister of Punjab, saying that he was able to offer resources to the far corner of Punjab. He added that he also provided hepatitis facilities and CT scans in every remote area of the province for poor people who are in dire need.
The PM further mentioned that he built one of the finest hospitals for kidney and liver in Lahore where free treatments were given to the poor while the rich people were charged, adding that his government was able to provide facilities to the people through this combination of cross-option subsidy.
