ISLAMABAD, 10th May 2026 — Today, on Mother’s Day 2026, Pakistan’s largest integrated telecommunications company, PTCL and Ufone announce the launch of #MoreSupportForMothers: a nationwide initiative that pairs awareness with action, first-of-its-kind mental health initiative in the telecom industry. In partnership with Oladoc, Pakistan’s leading digital health platform, PTCL and Ufone are making free consultations with certified psychiatrists available to mothers across Pakistan accessible today through the UPTCL app, at no cost and with no barriers.
The Initiative: Turning Connectivity into Care
Postpartum depression affects an estimated 40% of Pakistani mothers, a rate up to four times the global average, and among the highest in all of Asia. It is one of the most widespread and least addressed mental health challenges in the country. And for most of the mothers who experience it, professional support has never been a realistic choice.
Pakistan has 0.19 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. Its mental health budget is 0.4% of total health spending. Nine out of ten people in this country who need mental health support receive none. For new mothers in smaller cities, rural districts, and remote communities, women who also face the added weight of distance, mobility restrictions, and deep-rooted stigma, the gap is even wider.
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The Partnership: PTCL, Ufone & Oladoc
PTCL and Ufone’s partnership with Oladoc brings together Pakistan’s largest telecom infrastructure and its most trusted digital health platform to deliver something the country’s maternal mental health landscape has never had scale.
Oladoc connects patients with thousands of verified healthcare professionals across specialties. Through this partnership, its network of certified psychiatrists is now accessible, for free, to every mother in Pakistan who downloads the UPTCL app. The service is available on iOS and Android, requires no prior diagnosis or referral, and is designed to function in communities far beyond Pakistan’s urban centres.
This is not a pilot programme for a handful of users in Karachi or Lahore. PTCL and Ufone’s reach extends across every province, every district, and every corner of Pakistan. And so, through this initiative, the support.
PTCL and Ufone have been part of Pakistani families for decades. Their networks carry calls that has crossed distances, the messages that kept people close, and the connections that made the country feel smaller. That history comes with a responsibility, and this initiative is an expression of it.
Mental health in Pakistan has long been underfunded, understaffed, and overlaid with stigma. The mothers who bear the highest burden of that neglect are often the least visible, new mothers in the exhausting, disorienting weeks after birth, in homes that celebrate the baby and forget to ask how she is doing.
#MoreSupportForMothers does not claim to fix the system. It claims something more achievable and more urgent: that for the mothers in Pakistan who are struggling right now, today, there is somewhere to turn. A real resource. A real professional. A real conversation. Available for free, through a screen they already carry in their pocket.
