Sheeba Shahid

Aga Khan Health Service Pakistan

The first health institution built in Pakistan was a 42-bed maternity hospital - formerly known as the Janbai Maternity Home - which opened in Karachi in 1924. Today, while maintaining that early focus on maternal and child health, Aga Khan Health Services also offers services that range from primary health care to diagnostic services and curative care. It reaches over 1.1 million people in rural and urban Sindh, Punjab as well as the North West Frontier, Northern Areas and Chitral. As the largest not-for-profit private health care system in Pakistan, its goal is to supplement the Government's efforts in health care provision, especially in the areas of maternal and child health and primary health care. AKHS,P now operates 47 health centres in Karachi, 27 in Sindh, 14 in Punjab and North West Frontier provinces, 33 in the Northern Areas and 31 in Chitral. In the North of Pakistan, AKHS has been implementing the Northern Pakistan Primary Health Care Programme since 1987. Working in partnership with local communities, the government, and other AKDN institutions, like the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, the goal has been to find sustainable ways of financing and delivering primary health care in the high-mountain valleys. This has led to a village-based approach -- the designation of community health workers by the local village organisation, the training of these workers in community-based disease prevention, and the reorientation of health professionals (government and private) to primary health care. Since it began, AKHS,P has trained over 1000 Community Health Workers and 1000 Traditional Birth Attendants in the Northern Areas and Chitral.