Main description:

Choked Pipes is the first consolidated review of Pakistan's health system, which analyzes impediments and offers a phased implementation roadmap for reform. It outlines the existing configuration of the country's health system, presents a brief overview of the factors responsible for poor health status, and outlines weaknesses of 'reform' approaches adopted in the past. By describing the Mixed Health Systems Syndrome, the book has drawn attention to the systemic challenges in an
environment where publicly-funded government health delivery coexists with privately-financed market delivery. The direction of reform proposed in the book draws attention to a number of structural factors, both within and outside of the healthcare system and lay emphasis on reform of governance and
social welfare as an important adjunct to reform within the healthcare system. The reform roadmap is relevant to current efforts aimed at achieving development goals in today's macro-economically constrained environment and meeting broader development objectives in the context of Pakistan's prevailing geo-strategic challenges. The reform agenda proposed herein comes at a critical time in the evolution of interest in global health from 'diseases' to 'systems' and therefore has a bearing on
health systems in other developing countries, most of which have mixed health systems. As such, the normative framework is envisaged to be a useful contribution in the space of global health.