The health status of the women in district Mastung in is poor compared to the health condition of men. Women first feed the male members of her family and her children; the women themselves come last. There is no data available regarding calories intake. Health services are of great importance for the women in the country. They have to work for the whole family and bring up the children. If good health care is not provided to them, their health will deteriorate, the death rate at time of deliveries will increase along with infant mortality.

 In addition to public health care facilities, health care is also provided by hakeems and homeopathic doctors. Due to their low fee people often visit them. In addition there are some quacks and as people are uneducated, they cannot differentiate between a good doctor and a quack.

 The health services present in the district in 1995 are shown in the accompanying table. The population per doctor is 8,000, which shows that there are not enough doctors available in the district. The population per hospital bed is 8,333. Looking at other indicators given in the chart, we find that indeed government facilities in the district are quite inadequate. The private facilities are also insufficient. There are ten private clinics and nine hakeems. According to health sector sources there are 15 to 20 quacks active in the district.

 Two types of health care facilities are available in a district, curative and preventive. As far as prevention is concerned, the immunisation coverage of mothers and children up to the age of 5 years through vaccination is around 32 percent according to the health care authorities. The infant mortality rate is very high in the area, due to contagious diseases, unhygienic conditions, illiteracy, lack of health education etc. The maternity death rate is also very high. Statistics are however not available.

 Prenatal care exists, T.T. vaccination of and general care for pregnant women is carried out. Ten percent of the pregnant mothers are vaccinated against tetanus and 50 percent received general prenatal care. Family planning services are provided in all DHO offices and in the civil hospital.

 There is one civil hospital, for male and female patients. In the civil hospitals about 27 thousand patients were treated during the year 1995.

Major diseases are anaemia, skin infection, renal disease, worms infections, diarrhoea, dysentery, fever including malaria and jaundice. There is no data available regarding the private sector involvement in health activities to demonstrate the number of registered cases as a percentage of the total population. Some sketchy data is available which cannot be used to compute percentage of the population visiting hospitals.

There are a number of special health services which are provided by provincial and federal government to improve or facilitate health care programmes. The Primary Health Care and Family Planning Programme is initiated by the provincial government under the Prime Minister’s Health Programme. This programme is intensified through the involvement of international donors e.g. W.F.P, UNICEF and WHO. The objective is to provide health care services at an affordable rate. The programme is aimed at mother and child care, providing them with nutritious food like milk and ghee. Also it provides information regarding family planning and subsidises contraceptives. Under the Prime Minister Primary Health Care and Family Planning Programme, prevention and control of infectious diseases, immunisation and provision of essential drugs is also available. It also provides health education, treatment of common illness and provides awareness about the treatment of common diseases and sanitation.

 WHO in-collaboration with Deputy Commissioner Mastung and district heads of government departments has initiated Basic Minimum Needs (BMN) programme in Paringabad village. This programme aims at alleviation of poverty and at providing Primary Health Care to the population of the area with the active involvement of the beneficiaries.

 The Balochistan Medical Council, launches medical camps in the area to provide medical facilities. Another example is the Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) programme. In the rural sector, middle aged women traditionally work as birth attendants. In the recent past they used to work without any formal training, but now most of them are trained by the Health Department. They are paid by the Health Department as well as by their patients.

At district level, the District Health Officer (DHO) is responsible for all health care activities. The hospital is administered by the Medical Superintendent.

Health facilities are provided mostly by the provincial government, in some cases international donors also help. There are private clinics, hakeems and homeopathic clinics.

The health sector is not well organised. There is lack of facilities for the patients and residential facilities for the doctors, particularly for lady doctors, are inadequate. Another problem is the unavailability and unwillingness of lady doctors to work in the district especially remote areas. There is only one hospital for 200,000 thousand people.

 The health status of women vis-a-vis males is very poor. Their food is less nutritious. On average, a woman gives birth to six children during her life, leading to the fact that women face more health problems than men. More girls than boys die in young age, girls get less to eat, receive less medical care and when pregnant do often not receive the required prenatal care.

 The incidence of diseases could be reduced, if there were more sanitation and potable water schemes. UNICEF and the Dutch Government support activities that aim at creating awareness among the population about better hygienic and sanitary conditions.

 Back to Mastung