Punjab’s public healthcare system is in freefall. What was once a model of reform offering near-universal coverage through the Sehat Sahulat Card to 29.3 million families has been systematically dismantled.
Between 2018 and 2022, the province boasted a 98% satisfaction rate, immunisation coverage of 92%, and a COVID-19 response that drew global praise. Today, those achievements feel like a distant memory.
The collapse accelerated in June 2025, when the provincial government suspended the Sehat Card without warning. Millions of poor families lost their health safety net overnight. Private hospital empanelments dropped from 654 to just 155. Dialysis costs shot up to Rs5,500 per session.
Over 2,000 rural clinics were outsourced to private operators many now operate without doctors or essential medicines. Meanwhile, 12,500 frontline health workers were dismissed, crippling primary care in villages and towns.
The numbers tell a grim story. At Rawalpindi’s three main hospitals, a Rs2 billion funding gap threatens to halt free medicine distribution entirely. Holy Family Hospital received only Rs400 million against its Rs1.5 billion demand; suppliers have stopped credit.
At Nishtar Hospital in Multan, the Pakistan Medical Association reports critical shortages of life-saving antibiotics. Patients are forced to buy medicines from expensive private pharmacies if they can afford them at all.
Infrastructure projects have become white elephants. Wah General Hospital, built at a cost of Rs1.70 billion, operates at less than one-third of its required staff. Dialysis machines sit idle for lack of trained technicians. There is no intensive care unit, no neonatal ward.
At Rawalpindi Teaching Hospital, a surprise inspection found patients paying Rs10,000 to Rs75,000 for surgical supplies, expired drugs in storage, and entire departments shut during working hours due to staff absenteeism. A government survey revealed 36% of patients complained about medicine shortages, and 31% about staff misconduct.
The human toll is unbearable. Since December 2024, nearly 300 HIV cases mostly in children aged one to ten—have emerged in Taunsa, linked to unsafe blood transfusions at poorly regulated rural centres. When the 2025 floods displaced two million people, the weakened system could not cope. Cholera, dengue, and malaria spread as relief efforts faltered.
Despite this crisis, Punjab’s healthcare development budget has been slashed by nearly 58% from Rs181 billion to just Rs76.3 billion. Flagship programmes like Universal Health Insurance and the children’s heart surgery initiative have been cut or eliminated. Health workers are now protesting against privatisation plans that would further exclude the poor from care.
The tragedy is this: healthcare is not an expense it is disaster preparedness. Systems dismantled in calmer times collapse when people need them most. Punjab’s leadership has chosen austerity over survival, politics over patients.
The result is a system where the most vulnerable especially children pay with their lives for administrative neglect. Until accountability returns and funding is restored, this crisis will only deepen.
Ms. Sumra Farooq is an educator and writer with 20 years of experience. She can be reached at biyazdomain21@gmail.com.
