A nation of over 200 million citizens, Pakistan is a major player in South Asia, with a large population to care for. Like many countries around the world, it is struggling to address the shortage of doctors and prevalence of chronic diseases while ensuring access to affordable medicine. But where there are challenges, there is also room for innovation. Today, we are seeing entrepreneurs and medical teams come up with a new way to tackle some of Pakistani healthcare’s trickiest problems. 

“There’s such an unmet need, because we’re a huge population. We’re the fifth largest population of the world, and imagine if 75% of that population is not being able to access basic health services. We still have some of the world’s great endemics, we still have polio, we’re still struggling with tuberculosis,” Dr Sara Saeed Khurram, public health specialist, tells MobiHealthNews. “I think this is a difficult time, but I think this is also the right time to introduce the right kind of services to the market, because if people can adapt to it, then it can bring a huge opportunity to scale.”

Pakistan is one of a few countries that has failed to eradicate polio. A widespread vaccination campaign is now in place following a resurgence, from 12 cases in 2018 to 144 in 2019, according to figures from the World Health Organization. 

“This disparity in access [to] and quality [of care], though reflecting in our poor scores on various health and mortality related rankings, presents an opportunity for healthcare startups to solve real healthcare problems – and leapfrog the development of our healthcare system,” says Rafeh Ahmed, lead of an early-stage startup incubator at Aga Khan University, a renowned academic institution.

From the people that we spoke to, we heard that the digital health space in the country is fairly nascent, with businesses starting in the appointment-booking space and evolving as they get traction. 

But there is one innovator that has taken on an ambitious task. 

“When I was growing up, my father had three children, and he already planned that he was going to have two sons and one daughter,” says Dr Saeed. “He had a plan that my elder brother is going to become an engineer, the second one is going to become a banker, and I am going to become a doctor.”

All three children went on to do just that. “The reason that he wanted me to be a doctor is because it’s a very interesting thing in Pakistan that the majority of middle-class parents will have money to educate their [daughters and] they want them to become doctors. 

“And they want them to become doctors, not because they will become doctors and save humanity, or because there is a lot of demand in the country, but because it gives a very high social stature to a woman in Pakistan. It makes them noble and respected. When their social stature is raised, it helps them get a better hand in marriage.”

This is known as the 'doctor bride' phenomenon in Pakistan. Despite having over 200 million people, Dr Saeed says Pakistan has only around 170,000 doctors, out of which 60%-70% are female.

“We’re clearly in a majority,” she explains. “But between graduation and formal practice, the amount of female doctors that come back to the workforce is only 23%. So we essentially are missing [out] on a great majority of female doctors who are not being able to cross the bridge between graduation to practice, and a lot of times this is because of the doctor bride phenomenon.

“Because, by the time they graduate, they get married and then their in-laws or their husbands do not allow them to come back to work full time – or even if they do, they have children, and it becomes really difficult for them to choose between their career and family.”

In the 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, which benchmarked 153 countries, looking at the extent of gender-based gaps in the areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment, Pakistan ranked third to last.  

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