Big Leap in Punjab Healthcare

Qudrat Ullah

Punjab, the beating heart of Pakistan and home to over half its population, is writing a bold new chapter in public health—one that is already transforming millions of lives. Under Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, six flagship health initiatives have collectively extended services to more than 21 million patients in a remarkably short period, a scale of outreach that deserves national recognition and serious attention from global health observers.
This transformation is firmly anchored in the global imperative of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), a cornerstone of the World Health Organization Sustainable Development Goal 3 and the Regional Strategic Operational Plan 2025–2028. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has made it a priority to ensure that Punjab’s vast population receives quality healthcare, driving measurable progress against longstanding challenges such as infant and maternal mortality, which for decades remained insufficiently addressed.
At the heart of this strategy is the “Clinic on Wheels” program, a last-mile delivery model fully aligned with WHO’s vision of people-centred primary care. Mobile clinics have treated approximately 18.2 million patients, performed around seven million ultrasound procedures, and immunised 1.2 million children. Field hospitals have recorded 2.8 million patient visits, over 448,000 laboratory tests and more than 170,000 diagnostic imaging examinations. Together, these achievements reflect a decisive shift from reactive hospital care to proactive, community-based outreach that genuinely meets people where they live.
Perhaps the most humane dimension of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif’s health agenda is the integration of home-based care for chronic and infectious diseases. Over 30,000 patients now receive essential medicines at their doorstep. More than 2,200 diabetic patients are supplied with two months of insulin at a time, sparing them repeated and costly trips to distant facilities. Over 14,000 hepatitis patients and nearly 13,900 tuberculosis patients benefit from regular home delivery of treatment regimens, helping them complete treatment without disrupting their livelihoods or family responsibilities. Punjab’s home-delivery model also directly supports Pakistan’s national hepatitis C elimination program, launched in 2024, which aims to test and treat 50 percent of the eligible population by 2027.
For the first time in Punjab’s history, renovations of 1,217 health facilities have been completed under this government, transforming Basic Health Units and Rural Health Centres into functional and welcoming primary care hubs serving populations of 25,000 to 50,000 each. A third phase covering 895 additional facilities is now under construction, backed by a significant health budget. Punjab has recorded a remarkable 24 percent increase in health spending, with Rs42.6 billion allocated for primary and secondary healthcare development alone. This level of investment reflects a government that treats public health not merely as an administrative responsibility, but as a moral obligation.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has also championed a data-driven governance model that sets Punjab apart in health system innovation. Community health inspectors have registered over 63 million individuals, mapping nearly eight million households and around ten million homes. The GIS team of the Health and Population Department has completed area mapping for more than 58,000 localities, enabling precision resource allocation and ensuring that even the most remote communities are visible to planners and policymakers. A network of 251 digital surveillance assistants monitors service quality in real time and the results are striking: average patient waiting time has fallen to under five minutes at participating facilities—a benchmark competitive even by international standards.
Specialised cardiac services, once limited to major urban centres like Lahore, have now been brought closer to ordinary citizens across the province. Catheterisation laboratories are operational in four DHQ hospitals in Jhelum, Jhang, Mianwali and Vehari where 1,628 procedures have been performed, including more than 1,000 angiographies and 559 angioplasties. For a patient facing a cardiac emergency in rural Punjab, this decentralisation is not merely administrative reform; it is often the difference between life and death.
What Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has set in motion is more than a series of health programmes. It is a redefinition of the state’s relationship with its citizens, built on compassion, accountability and the conviction that every person in Punjab, regardless of geography or income, deserves dignified, accessible and quality healthcare. Punjab is steadily emerging as a proof of concept for equitable, technology-enabled healthcare delivery across South Asia, offering a model that other provinces and developing regions would do well to study.

(The writer is a Lahore-based public policy analyst and can be reached at [email protected])