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 reaching millions.
Under Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif, six flagship health initiatives have collectively extended services to more than 21 million patients in a remarkably compressed timeframe, a scale of outreach that demands serious attention from policymakers and global health observers alike. This transformation is firmly anchored in the global imperative of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), a cornerstone of the WHO’s Sustainable Development Goal 3 and the Regional Strategic Operational Plan 2025–2028. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has made it her mission to ensure that Punjab’s vast population, over 50% of Pakistan’s total, receives the quality healthcare it deserves, driving measurable progress against longstanding indicators such as infant and maternal mortality that previously left unaddressed.
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 registered 2.8 million patient visits, alongside over 448,000 laboratory tests and more than 170,000 diagnostic imaging examinations. Together, these achievements reflect a decisive and commendable shift from reactive hospital care toward 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 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 their care without disrupting their livelihoods or family lives. 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% 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, welcoming primary care hubs that serve populations of 25,000 to 50,000 people each. A third phase covering 895 additional facilities is under construction, backed by ample health budget, a remarkable 24% increase over the previous year, with Rs42.6 billion allocated for primary and secondary healthcare development alone. This level of investment signals a government that treats public health not as a budget line but as a moral commitment.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has also championed a data-driven governance model that sets Punjab apart as a leader in health system innovation. Community health inspectors have registered over 63 million individuals, mapping approximately eight million households and nearly 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 speak for themselves: average patient waiting time has fallen to under five minutes at participating facilities, a benchmark that would be competitive in many middle-income countries.
Specialised cardiac services, once the privilege of patients who could travel to Lahore, have now been brought directly to ordinary citizens across the province. Catheterisation laboratories are operational in four district headquarters hospitals, namely Jhelum, Jhang, Mianwali and Vehari, where 1,628 procedures have been performed, including over 1,000 angiographies and 559 angioplasties. For a patient facing a cardiac emergency in rural Punjab, this decentralisation is nothing short of lifesaving. What Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has set in motion is more than a set of health programs. 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 well on its way to becoming a proof-of-concept for equitable, technology-enabled healthcare delivery across South Asia.
—The writer is a Lahore-based public policy analyst.
