Rana Tahir Shahbaz
PAKISTAN is facing an alarming rise in patients. In recent years, even expensive hospitals are overflowing. People stand in long queues, spending millions individually and billions collectively each year just to recover. In laboratories, patients wait for hours. Medical stores remain packed all day. The question is not just how many are sick, but why so many are falling ill at younger ages.
The disease burden has gone far beyond seasonal flu. We now see bone and joint problems in youth, widespread diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, kidney failure and cancer. Hepatitis B and C, eye-sight weakness, skin allergies, asthma, TB, anxiety, depression and digestive disorders are also increasing.
Communicable diseases remain a major threat. Dengue, malaria, typhoid, cholera and diarrhea surge every monsoon and after floods. Children suffer malnutrition, stunting and repeated infections. Adults in their 30s and 40s are being diagnosed with chronic illnesses that once appeared much later.
What is driving this crisis? The answer lies in what we eat, drink and breathe. Substandard food is now common. Milk demand exceeds supply, so artificial and adulterated milk floods the market. Vegetables are grown with contaminated water. Flour, oil and packaged foods often fail quality tests. Steroid-injected chicken and meat with unsafe preservatives are sold openly. Our diet also lacks essential vitamins and minerals.
Unsafe drinking water worsens the problem. In many cities and villages, tap water is polluted. This spreads typhoid, hepatitis A, cholera and chronic kidney disease. Other factors add pressure. Urban smog and air pollution trigger asthma and lung disease. Lack of exercise, high sugar and salt intake and stress fuel diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Overuse of antibiotics and self-medication are creating drug resistance.
The result is tragic. Our young generation is growing up with weak immunity and lower life expectancy. Families are stuck in a cycle: earn, fall sick, spend on treatment and repeat. We can learn from other nations. China invested in a national nutrition plan, school meals and strict food safety. By 2015 its next generation was taller and healthier. In GCC countries, food purity and water quality are top priorities, leading to far fewer food-borne illnesses.
Individuals cannot test milk, inspect water plants or regulate farms. This is the state’s duty. We need strict enforcement of food safety laws, regular testing of milk, meat, flour and vegetables and severe penalties for adulteration. Every city and village must have clean, treated drinking water. We also need a national diet plan by nutritionists, rolled out in schools, hospitals and public programs, focused on balanced nutrition and fortified foods.
This is not about one generation. We are not Pakistan’s last generation. If we fail to act, we will pass illness, debt and poor health to our children. A healthy nation rests on clean water, pure food and strong prevention. It is time the state treats this as a national emergency. The cost of inaction is already being paid in hospitals, pharmacies and lost lives.
—The writer is Director Marketing/Special Reports, Daily Pakistan Observer.
