3. Contracting of primary health care services in Pakistan: Is up-scaling a pragmatic thinking?

Babar Tasneem Shaikh, Fauziah Rabbani, Najibullah Safi, Zia Dawar

Abstract

Quite often, public health care systems in developing countries are struggling because of incompetence and a lack of provider responsiveness to the needs of consumers. On the contrary, the private sector dominates the system of health provision. In recent years, contracting has been experimented as an approach to ensure delivery of comprehensive public health services in an efficient, effective, superior and fair manner and has generally thrived well. The state's healthcare system in Pakistan has suffered a lot, owing to structural fragmentation, resource scarcity, inefficiency and lack of functional specificity, gender insensitivity and inaccessibility. However, partnering with the private sector has shown some exceptional accomplishments. Though challenging but structural reforms, involving private health sector have become indispensable. The overall experience shows that up-scaling of such initiatives in the country would require lot of cautions to be taken by the government.

J Pak Med Assoc, Vol. 60, No. 5, May 2010