ISLAMABAD: The annual allowance for treatment of over 160,000 families registered under the Prime Minister’s National Health Programme has been doubled to Rs600,000.

According to the secretary of the ministry of National Health Services (NHS), each of the registered families currently has a treatment allowance of Rs300,000 and if a patient exceeds that limit, the health programme automatically doubles the money.

He said this had become possible after a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the ministry, Pakistan Baitul Mal and State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan on Tuesday.

“Initially, we were paying Rs1,300 for a patient, now we have to pay Rs45 more per family to get ‘Excess loss coverage’ for all the families,” he said. “It is estimated that almost one per cent of the families will exceed their limit.”

The programme was launched by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Dec 31 in Islamabad and was termed the first step towards a welfare state.

The prime minister launched the programme in Muzaffarabad on Feb 25. The next phase of this scheme is planned in different parts of Punjab, Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

The initiative will not benefit people of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because provincial governments have declined to join the initiative.

Under the programme, a family can receive Rs50,000 for secondary care treatment which begins as soon as a patient is hospitalised. This includes all kinds of illnesses as well as maternity.

Each family can receive treatment worth Rs250,000 under the category of priority diseases, which includes cancer, accidents, burn injury, diabetic complications, heart bypass and infections. With the signing of the MoU, this amount can now be doubled.

According to an official statement, the “programme’s beneficiaries are poor families with a daily income of $2 (Rs200) or less”. So far more than 1,700 beneficiaries have been treated for various ailments, ranging from appendectomy to open heart surgeries in hospitals on the programme’s panel.

NHS Secretary Mohammad Ayub Sheikh said that the overall Rs1,345 premium would be given to State Life and the additional amount of Rs45 per family would be contributed by Pakistan Baitul Mal.

“So in case of hospitalisation, if a patient exceeds his allowance or limit, it will double automatically without any procedure or filling of application,” he said. “The patient and his family won’t even know about it. Moreover, we get almost 50pc discount from hospitals so the limit is almost equal to Rs1.2 million.”

NHS Director General Dr Asad Hafeez told Dawn that as many as 81,000 families had been registered from Islamabad and 79,000 from Muzaffarabad.

The health programme will be launched in 23 districts to provide the services to 3.2m families living below the poverty line.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2016