PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has shown inability to include lawyers and journalists in Sehat Sahulat Programme under which the people with daily income of less than three dollars are eligible to avail free treatment at the hospitals.

They have been advised to deposit premium with State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC) to be able to get enrolled for free of charge investigation and treatment. SLIC is implementing the programme on behalf of government.

The government piloted the first phase of the project in four districts last year where 100,000 households with daily income of one and half dollar were covered. About Rs131.756 million was spent on only four per cent population.

The second phase of the programme began in January 2017 in all districts with coverage of 1.8 million household or 51 per cent population. The beneficiaries include people with about two dollars income per day. The annual allocation was Rs2.775 billion while the third phase is going to begin early next year under which population with daily income of less than three dollars would get free treatment.

Both the communities advised to deposit premium with insurance firm

Under the programme, a total of 2.48 million or 69 per cent population will get free treatment next year. The government had initially allocated Rs5.4 billion for the programme and then an additional amount of Rs1.6 billion was allocated to cover more families. So far, 74,000 families have benefited from the programme.

Sources said that the programme was meant for poor population while both the lawyers and journalists did not fall in the category of the income groups covered under the scheme.

Health Secretary Abid Majeed told Dawn that they had approved giving SICs to lawyers and journalists in principles but they had to deposit premium. “The programme is for poor people and as a rule we can extend the facility to affluent population. We have sent proformas to their relevant departments,” he said.

Mr Majeed said that lately, they included 1 24,000 people with disabilities and 229 transgender persons in the programme.

He said that social welfare department would pay premium for both.

Advocate Noor Alam Khan, senior member of executive council of KP Bar Council, told Dawn that there were 21,000 lawyers in the province for whom they had requested Sehat Insaf Cards.

“The governments of Sindh and Punjab have been providing subsidised healthcare services to lawyers. We want similar arrangements for 21,000 lawyers in KP,” he said.

He added that they would be holding meeting with the SLIC to sort out modalities but wanted the government to deposit seed money on their behalf and they would pay their premium.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2017