ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday approved the National Health Insurance Scheme for the poorest segment of the nation.

If all goes as planned, the scheme will provide health insurance facility to 100 million people. The scheme will be implemented in phases.

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar had said that the government was keeping a provision of Rs1 billion for the health insurance scheme. It would be implemented on pilot basis during the financial year 2014-15.

The scheme, according to Senator Dar, will enable a beneficiary to obtain health insurance for tertiary and special diseases.

The prime minister gave approval for the scheme at a meeting he presided over here on Thursday. The meeting was attended by the finance minister, Chairperson of PM’s Youth Programme Maryam Nawaz, Minister of State for Health Saira Afzal Tarrar, and senior officers of health and finance ministries.

According to a participant, the Ministry of Health in collaboration with institutions like Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) and National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) will work out methodologies to identify people who needed this insurance scheme.

According to one suggestion, beneficiaries of the scheme should be issued special health cards which they could use to claim the premium. Once covered under the health insurance, a beneficiary will be able to get the treatment at a hospital of his/her choice both in private and public sectors. With the introduction of the scheme, there will be healthy competition between private and public sectors to attract the beneficiaries.

Initially, the official said, the scheme would be implemented in selected districts on incremental basis. For example, there are many districts, where one doesn’t need to actually get into nitty-gritty to find out who are the deserving candidates for the insurance scheme. People living in slums and the countryside where healthcare facilities were non-existent will be targeted.

According to an official statement, Ms Maryam, the architect of the scheme, gave a briefing to the prime minister in which a comparative study of major health blanket models of European Union, United States and India and options for implementing the scheme in Pakistan were discussed.

During the meeting, the prime minster said that the health insurance programme was the only way forward to provide protection to the economically deprived people. He said: “The scheme is the first of its kind to introduce a grievance redressal system as well as social security safety net for the poor people. The programme will not only give the vulnerable sections of the society an access to cash free health facilities but will also help to develop and revolutionise the health infrastructure across Pakistan.”.

The prime minister said that “the scheme will also enhance public-private partnership in Pakistan and will open up further avenues for investment”.

During the briefing, Ms Maryam said that the scheme was designed on simple lines to ensure cost efficiency. The scheme would be completely apolitical and would provide a blanket cover for cash-free treatment to poor people for major diseases like cardiovascular, diabetes mellitus, life and limb saving treatment, implants, prosthesis, end-stage renal diseases and dialysis, chronic infections (hepatitis), organ failure (hepatic, renal, cardiopulmonary) and cancer treatment (chemo, radio, surgery).

The statement said the meeting decided to establish the first-ever state of the art public sector human organ transplant centre in Islamabad.

The prime minister directed the ministries of finance and health to coordinate and finalise technical modalities and implementation strategy so that an early relief could be given to people.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2014