Islamabad: Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal issued a stark warning on Monday, calling Pakistan a “machine that produces patients” rather than a system that prevents illness. Speaking at a public event in the capital, Kamal painted a grim picture of the country’s healthcare crisis, blaming worsening environmental conditions, unchecked population growth, and poor infrastructure for the nation’s rising disease burden.
He criticized overcrowded hospitals and compared them to political rallies where one crowd exits and another enters. “No hospital in the world can work under such conditions,” he said, adding that the system has become more about managing sickness than promoting health.
Kamal highlighted Pakistan’s high birth rate of 3.6%, resulting in over 6.1 million new births annually. “If this continues, we’ll need 66,000 new schools and 680,000 teachers every year,” he warned, citing 26.2 million children already out of school.
He stressed that 68% of diseases in the country stem from contaminated water due to the absence of a proper sewage treatment system. “We are poisoning our people. Even children are developing cancer and kidney failure,” he said, urging swift reforms to prevent further collapse of the healthcare system.
