PESHAWAR: The government is hiring additional staff and signing agreement with Nadra before launching the province-wide Sehat Sahulat Programme (SSP) from July this year, according to sources.

They said that two summaries, to seek approval for hiring of staff and seal agreement with Nadra for SSP, were awaiting approval of chief minister before signing contracts with the insurance firm for free healthcare to 100 per cent residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

So far, 209,542 patients have received free treatment under the free social health initiative in the province at a cost of Rs5.146 billion since 2016. The provincial government has announced to cover all the six million families in the province under the programme from next financial year. The government has pledged Rs15 billion per year for the scheme.

The flagship programme has now been replicated in Punjab and parts of Sindh and Balochistan. However, it faces issues in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which pioneered it in 2015. It is important to resolve these issues prior to extension of the scheme to the entire province to ensure provision of better services to people.

Under the programme, treatment facility to 32 million people will be provided for which tender has been floated. Proposals from insurance companies will be received by March 10 and the process is likely to be completed by May.

Agreement with Nadra will be signed after CM’s approval

The finance department has approved a proposal for approval of additional technical positions and services of professionals in advocacy, procurement and contract management, MIS and data analysis, actuarial science, health insurance, empanelment and accreditation, monitoring and evaluation, administration and financing and accounting etc.

A summary for appointment of 10 technical people awaits chief minister’s approval after which the process will be started to provide free health services to people at government and private hospitals.

The SSP has been facing acute shortage of staff due to which it couldn’t monitor the services provided by insurance firm. The State Life Insurance Corporation is facilitating patients at the empanelled hospitals but the SSP does not have personnel to ensure that complaints of beneficiaries are properly addressed and standard of health facilities is checked.

The government pays market rates to the insurance firm for the patients it facilitates at the end of every month and the SSP’s request for additional staff meant to further improve the programme because all the people will become entitled to free health services from new financial year.

The SSP, which has six professionals on technical positions and 16 support staff, wants to have a total of 53 staffers including 17 technical people after new recruitments to check quality of diagnostic and treatment services provided to the people under the programme and properly handle the complaints against the service providers and facilitators.

Sources said that government was satisfied with SSP’s performance. The recruitment process will take three months and the programme needs the services of newly-recruited people before July 1 to take care of the province-wide programme.

The SSP also needs sub offices at district level at a later stage.

Negotiation and agreement with Nadra needed to be signed before selection of insurance company that would happen after approval of chief minister, they said.

They said that all arrangement must be put in place by or before May 30 to start free healthcare to all residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from July.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2020