The Punjab government has registered health and demographic profiles for nearly 94.3 million citizens across the province under its first digital health census, in what Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz described as a foundational step toward data-driven healthcare planning. The progress was reviewed at a meeting chaired by the chief minister, where officials informed her that the digital health census was near completion and that more than 85 percent of the population in 18 districts had been covered through health and demographic profiling, with five districts achieving 100 percent coverage and another five completing over 95 percent profiling.
The census was conducted through door-to-door visits by 14,300 community health inspectors who collected medical, demographic, and socioeconomic data from households across Punjab. Every household in the province has been assigned a unique identification number through digital mapping, creating a structured registry that links individual health profiles to specific residential addresses. The chief minister reviewed the programme’s digital dashboard, which contains comprehensive information on citizens’ health status, lifestyle, economic conditions, access to drinking water, and disability status, giving health department officials a data foundation that has never previously existed at this scale or accuracy in Punjab’s healthcare planning history.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz stated that without authentic data, no policy can be effective, adding that healthcare services would now be planned and delivered on the basis of 100 percent verified digital data instead of estimates. She observed that accurate data was essential to determine the number of patients and medicines required in each area, and noted that many basic health issues and diseases had never before been systematically documented at the population level. The shift from estimate-based to evidence-based resource allocation represents a material change in how Punjab will make decisions about deploying doctors, medicines, equipment, and healthcare infrastructure across its 36 districts in future budget cycles.
The meeting also presented a proposal to launch the Maryam Nawaz Sehatmand Gharana Programme, under which citizens would be directly linked with primary healthcare centres, reducing the burden on hospitals by keeping routine health management at the community level. Patients suffering from diabetes, hypertension, hepatitis, cancer, and malnutrition would be monitored through a digital follow-up system, enabling proactive care management rather than reactive treatment. A modern disaster recovery site will also be established to ensure the security of Punjab’s health database. On cardiac health infrastructure, the chief minister directed that 16 cardiac catheterisation laboratories be made operational across the province by December 2026, with five already functional and facilities in Bhakkar, Bahawalnagar, and Layyah directed to become operational at the earliest. She also instructed the health department to launch a comprehensive population management campaign to address the province’s growing population, framing data and digital governance as inseparable from the broader challenge of managing Punjab’s future health and demographic trajectory.
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