Abstract:

Health conditions in Pakistan are very bad. Government and non-governmental organizations are trying to meet international standard of health services. Some healthcare providers are educated, trained and certified from the government but some are unqualified and not certified. In this research two national newspapers are analyzed the daily Jang Urdu and the daily Dawn English. These newspapers cover healthcare services such as indoor patient, outdoor patient maternity and other health services in news stories. These services are also seen in the Literature Review. The researcher analyzed on coverage of healthcare in newspapers the daily Jang and the daily Dawn. This research has been performed by using content analysis technique under quantitative methodology. Media agenda setting theory was adopted in the theoretical framework as in the literature review. The statistical analyses of data analysis have been done in the form of frequency distribution and correlation analysis. SPSS is used to analyze the content of data. The results show that daily Jang is giving more coverage to health-related news stories than daily Dawn.

Key Words

Healthcare Service Delivery News in Pakistani Print Media.

Introduction

This article aimed to explore the coverage of healthcare service delivery news in print media of Pakistan, because it is a burning issue in the country as everyday people are facing problems in getting basic healthcare services. The population growth rate is very high, but rate of health facilities is not increasing as compare to population growth. It is looking that print media is not covering health news as compare to political and entertainment news; though health situation is not satisfactory in the country and media researchers have proved again and again that media have power to change and educate the people and the journalist should frame health news in media with more coverage. This may help to improve poor health situation in country.

Print media is covering huge population of country and effecting on building consent in people. Print media give more coverage to other subjects such as fashion, politics and business. These markets boost up and grow. Print media can promote public awareness in healthcare system by giving more coverage to healthcare system and its gaps. According to Gallup & Gilani Pakistan (2018) only 5% coverage has been given in newspaper articles in February 2018. This is very low figure of coverage policy makers and agenda settler should think and give more coverage to healthcare issues.

In Pakistan health sector is developing and delivering poorly in both Public and Private Healthcare. According to Transparent Hands that is non-government organization stated in a report “List of Top 15 health issues in Pakistan” that World Health Organization (WHO) said Pakistan is 122 out of 190 ranked in countries in healthcare delivery and more than 60 million of Pakistan people are spending their lives under poverty line. Mostly poor people are suffering in 15 most common diseases in Pakistan. These are tuberculosis, ischemic heart disease, dengue fever, malaria, cancer, 350,000 heart attack cases are reported per year, and more than seven million people are diabetes patient and this increasing in number and in Pakistan. Hepatitis A and E are spread through unhygienic food and B and C form blood transfusion, HIV/AIDS is big issue according to UNAIDS there are 100000 case are reported HIV positive in country, Maternal and child healthcare is another health issue due to unhealthy food, lack of information and facility of treatment, acute respiratory infection, hypertension covering about 20 percent of country’s population, asthma covering around 7 percent of population, diarrhea kill more than 300,000 children every year, and about 60 million people are facing mental disorder.

Gallup is a social researcher institute of Pakistan reported in 2015 there are 118869 hospital beds in Pakistan in which only 1167 are in proper hospital other 117702 are in dispensaries, basic health unites, rural health centers, and maternity homes etc. report said that per bed covering 1613 patients. To treat these patients there are approximately 184711 registered doctors, 16652 dentists, 34668 midwives and 16488 lady health workers are registered from 2000 to 2015 total health infrastructure increase only 14%. 

According to Pakistan bureau of statistics survey on Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) 67.4 percent of Pakistani families goes to private healthcare consultants. The private healthcare service providers are consisting of doctors, nurses, paramedics, pathologists, pharmacists, traditional healers, herbalists, homeopaths, and unqualified healthcare providers they also known as quacks. Private healthcare centers consist of 73,650, 8 tertiary care hospitals, and 692 small and medium hospitals. The reports of World Health Organization speak the density of physicians (per 10,000 persons) to be 7.8 percent while that of midwives (per 10,000 persons) to be 3.8 percent. The density of physicians and also of nurses and midwives (per 10,000 persons) in urban and rural areas are 14.5 percent, 3.6 percent, 7.6 percent and 2.9 percent, likely.

In print media two national newspapers will be taken for analyses Daily Jang Lahore and Daily Dawn. These two newspapers cover a large number of populations. These newspapers although issue health edition for public awareness frequently but this research paper will find the coverage of health-related news and their effects on policy makers. Government and policy makers take notice of these reliable newspapers in policy making process and its effects.

This study would help to find where is health in print media agenda and either print media attracting policy makers’ attention to health service delivery or not? This study will also grab ignoring and covering parts of healthcare. This research would assess the coverage of print media that how much coverage is giving by the print media which would show the agenda and the healthcare issues in Pakistan.

Statement of Problem

It is a fact that healthcare is a big issue in developing countries, where media is playing a vital role to set an agenda for the solution of the healthcare services delivery in these countries. Such as Pakistan is also confronting same issues, whereas, the researcher intends to investigate the coverage of health service delivery in print media that why it is giving coverage or not? If print media of Pakistan gives coverage of healthcare services delivery issues to create public awareness, this would help to solve healthcare issues. Government can use media to solve healthcare problems in country.

Objective

• To compare healthcare news coverage in English and Urdu dailies of Pakistan.

• To examine salience given in both dailies.

• To investigate nature of healthcare news in both dailies.

Research Questions:

• Which newspaper is covering more news about healthcare services?

• Which newspaper is covering salience in both dailies?

• What is the nature of healthcare news in both dailies, administrative and non-administrative news?

Hypotheses

H1: Daily Dawn is covering more healthcare service delivery news than daily Jang. 

H2: Daily Jang is not covering salience of the issue.

H3: Daily Jang is not covering non-administrative than administrative news. 

H4: It is assumed that daily Dawn is covering more healthcare news demographically than daily Jang.

H5: Daily Jang is not covering more healthcare news stories length in columns than daily Dawn. 

H6: Daily Dawn is covering month wise healthcare news than daily Jang.

Table 1. Healthcare Services Coverage in Both Newspapers

	F	%
Daily Dawn	159	30.8
Daily Jang	357	69.2
Total	516	100.0

       

The table 1 illustrate the coverage of both newspapers about healthcare services in Pakistan that 69% news stories has covered by daily Jang, while daily Dawn published 31% news. This shows that almost double coverage given to healthcare services by daily Jang Urdu newspaper instead of daily Dawn English newspaper. It is concluded that Urdu newspapers are covering more local news and highlighting the issue of a common man as compare to English press.

H1: Daily Dawn is Covering more Healthcare Service Delivery News than Daily JANG.

Table 2. Newspaper * Healthcare Services Cross Tabulation

Count
		Healthcare Services						Total
		Administrative News	Emergency (ER) 1122	Hospital (IPD)	OPD	Maternity	Mental Health
Newspaper	Dawn	131	11	12	0	2	3	159
	Jang	324	4	21	1	3	4	357
Total		455	15	33	1	5	7	516

Table 2 is demonstrating that Dawn didn’t covered more healthcare delivery news than daily Jang. Daily Dawn reported 28 healthcare services news and 131 other healthcare news but not healthcare service. On the other side, daily Jang reported 33 news stories related to healthcare service delivery and 324 other healthcare news stories. Daily Jang is covering healthcare and healthcare service delivery news more than daily Dawn.

H2: Daily Jang is not Covering Salience of the Issue.

Table 3. Newspaper * Pages Cross Tabulation

Count
		Pages				Total
		Front	Back	Local	National
Newspaper	Dawn	1	3	140	15	159
	Jang	19	70	208	60	357
Total		20	73	348	75	516

 

The table 3 elaborates that daily Jang reported more healthcare news on its front page than daily Dawn. In other pages like back, local and national also showed that daily Jang reported more healthcare news as compare to daily Dawn.

H3: Daily Jang is not Covering Non-Administrative than Administrative News.

Table 4. Newspaper * Administrative Cross Tabulation

Count
		Administrative				Total
		Healthcare Services (Non-Administrative)	General Administrative News Form Govt. for Health	Administrative News focused on Hospitals	News from Hospital Administration
Newspaper	Dawn	46	105	7	1	159
	Jang	180	155	21	1	357
Total		226	260	28	2	516

       

The table 4 illustrated that daily Jang covered more healthcare administrative news than daily Dawn on the other hand news not related to administration are also more reported than Dawn newspaper.

H4: It is Assumed that daily Dawn is Covering more Healthcare news Demographically than daily Jang.

Table 5. Newspaper * Columns Cross Tabulation

Count
		Columns				Total
		One Column	Two Columns	Three Columns	Four to Eight Columns
Newspaper	Dawn	139	16	3	1	159
	Jang	242	87	24	4	357
Total		381	103	27	5	516

 

Table 5 exemplify that daily Jang reported more news in columns length than daily Dawn. In one to eight columns daily Jang covered more healthcare news than daily Dawn.

H6: Daily Dawn is Covering Month Wise Healthcare News than daily Jang

Table 6. Month * Newspaper Cross Tabulation

Count
		Newspaper		Total
		Dawn	Jang
Month	January	30	91	121
	February	21	48	69
	March	39	74	113
	April	31	63	94
	May	32	45	77
	June	6	36	42
	Total	159	357	516

 

The table 6 shows that daily Jang is covering more healthcare stories than daily Dawn. In the month of January and March more information related healthcare were covered.

Discussion

The study analyzed that daily Dawn didn’t cover more healthcare services delivery news than daily Jang. Daily Jang and daily Dawn are the newspapers that set the agenda in print media. Overall healthcare news coverage was more given in daily Jang and if look at healthcare services this cover only 12 percent healthcare services news in both newspapers. The daily Jang covered 33 stories but daily Dawn covered 28 stories in healthcare services. Gallup Pakistan (2016) says Pakistan was unable to meet its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for health and "ranked 149 in 188 countries in the first global assessment of countries' progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDS) related to the health of United Nations". As previous researches stated that media can raise awareness in community or public same thing proved by Khawaja, Tayyeb& Malik (2004) they said to improve the use of contraceptives in Pakistan, we need to use more sources of means to educate couples and their parents about contraception, strengthen the notion that religion not only allows but also recommends family planning and raise awareness among women so they have rights and opinions about family size.

Daily Dawn didn’t report more healthcare administrative news than daily Jang. Analysis illustrate that daily Jang covered 177 news stories regarding healthcare but daily Dawn covered 113 healthcare news stories. Daily Jang covered more news on front page as compare to daily Dawn. Daily Jang covered 19 news stories on front page but daily Dawn gave space to only one news story on its front page. On the other hands, both newspapers gave a big coverage on local news page. Paul & Brogen (2016) said is the number of health-related articles the same or does it differ between newspapers in English and Manipuri? To answer some of these questions, a quantitative analysis of health-related articles was conducted in the local Manipur newspaper. There is room for improvement in newspapers in both languages with respect to the number of health-related articles (especially medical topics and public health articles), publication section, type and size of health articles.

The coverage of both newspapers is giving huge healthcare coverage to Punjab province against other provinces and states as compare to other provinces and states.  Both newspapers did not report any news from AJK and from Gilgit Baltistan only 1 news was reported. Seven healthcare news reports were reported from Sindh, eight from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eleven from Baluchistan.

Conclusions

The findings of this study explored that daily Jang newspaper covered more healthcare news

 than daily Dawn. In these research two national newspapers was taken for Comparative Analysis study, daily Jang and daily Dawn. Both newspapers are old and have wide circulation in the country. Urdu is our national language that’s why daily Jang having more wide circulation than daily Dawn. This study proved that in national language newspapers are covering more healthcare news than daily Dawn that is in English language but healthcare news are not in priority in agenda. Comparisons declare that both newspapers covered healthcare event news more than healthcare services news. This means that healthcare events management arrange news hand-out or reporter for publishing news but newspapers and media houses don’t have priority to cover news itself that’s why by-line reports are very low in number as compare to correspondent news. World Health Organization (WHO) says Pakistan is currently ranking 122 out of 190 countries in healthcare delivery and more than 60 million people are living below the poverty line this means more healthcare issues generate more healthcare news but newspaper organizations don’t have healthcare in agenda. 

Sample of analyses newspapers showed that 2018 was election year and government was completing its period and trying to facilitate the population with more healthcare facilities to gain vote in this election that’s why healthcare news from government with announcement and policy are more reported on the other hand chief Justus of supreme court took suo-moto action on healthcare to make it better, this attracted more attention of newspapers to healthcare news. Stated three factors took places and healthcare highlighted in start of 2018. When the study analyses the middle of this year, this news frequency become low because election halt; the attention of Supreme Court is diverted to other problems. In spite of all this news coverage from hospitals are in points. Illegal healthcare is a big issue in our country. As stated in introduction chapter that there were 80,000 quacks were operating in Punjab. If other provinces count their quacks this figure become higher and this is an element from those who are damaging our healthcare system. This is responsibility of government and law enforcement institutes and media houses to report these quacks and stop them to work and operate quacks centers. This study proved that percentage of quackery report is in low than one and in points but percentage of action against quackery is little high but there is one more thing that legal healthcare centers are providing correct and healthcare services according to law. Newspapers reported that low percentage of blocked services from the government and this percentage is also as low as 0.4, that is not satisfactory.

References

• Gallup Pakistan (2016) Short Round up of Health Infrastructure in Pakistan-2000-2015. Retrieved from http://gallup.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Report-1-Short-Roundup-of- Health-Infrastructure-in-Pakistan1.pdf
• Gallup & Gilani Pakistan (2018). Newspaper content analysis report February 2018. Retrieved from http://gallup.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Newspaper-Content-Analysis- Report-February-2018-1.pdf
• Transparent Hands (2017). List of Top 15 health issues in Pakistan. Retrieved from https://www.transparenthands.org/list-of-top-15-health-issues-in-pakistan/
• Gallup & Gilani (2018) Newspaper Content Analysis Report. Gilani Research Foundation. Retrieved from website: https://gallup.com.pk/newspaper-content-analysis-report-for- july-2019/
• Diedong A. L. (2013). Covering health issues: the role of newspapers in Ghana. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(12), 46-51
• Paul S., & Singh A. B. (2016). Coverage of health-related articles in major local newspapers of Manipur. Journal of education and health promotion, 5.
• Khawaja N. P., Tayyeb R., & Malik, N. (2004). Awareness and practices of contraception among Pakistani women attending a tertiary care hospital. Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 24(5), 564-567.
• Roger D. L. (2017, September 05) https://www.dawn.com/news/1354278
• Razeen M. (2018, January 24) Healthcare in the US and Pakistan.Daily Times. Retrieved from https://dailytimes.com.pk/187286/healthcare-us-pakistan/
• Khawaja N. P., Tayyeb R., & Malik, N. (2004). Awareness and practices of contraception among Pakistani women attending a tertiary care hospital. Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 24(5), 564-567.
• Paul S., & Singh A. B. (2016). Coverage of health-related articles in major local newspapers of Manipur. Journal of education and health promotion, 5
• Martinson B. E., &Hindman D. B. (2004). Building a health promotion agenda in local newspapers. Health Education Research, 20(1), 51-60.