PESHAWAR: The authorities urged people to get registered with National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to receive free health services under Sehat Sahulat Programme that was extended to the entire population of Zone-1, Malakand division, on Sunday.

“Family size is less than three persons in Zone-1 as the people don’t register marriages, births and deaths with Nadra. Kohistan has 11-member family, the largest family size in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” SSP director Dr Mohammad Riaz Tanoli told Dawn.

The extension of the programme to the whole population of the province was started from Malakand to be followed by Hazara from December 1, Mardan and Peshawar from January 1, and Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail from February 1.

A family, to be covered under Sehat Sahulat Programme, means a group of people comprising husband, wife and unmarried children or husband and wife without any children or divorced and separated woman and man with or without unmarried children, widow or widower with or without unmarried children, or orphans having both parents lost.

People urged to get registered with Nadra for SSP services

“It is possible that a family may not be shown as separate family, rather the head of that family may be shown as a member of the family of his parents. This happens because he/she has not declared him/her as married with Nadra,” said Dr Riaz.

If a married person isn’t appearing in the SSP’s data because of non-registration as permanent resident of the province in Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) and a child may also be missing if he/she isn’t registered with Nadra.

A family member may not be included in the family tree due to the fact that the family hasn’t register him/her with Nadra by getting his/her Form “B”. Such a member, after getting registered with Nadra, would automatically appear in SSP’s database within 24 hours.

If a family with a valid CNIC isn’t shown in data due to non-registration with Nadra or has been registered after the data of his/her district was transferred to SSP’s data, it requires to get registered and would appear in SSP after six months along with all the registered family members.

Dr Riaz said that a total of 55 hospitals applied for the programme of which 37 were empaneled for five districts of Zone-1 after proper assessment.

A total of 1,389,327 families, including 572,036 in Swat’s 14 hospitals, 228,054 in Malakand’s six hospitals, 301,310 in Lower Dir’s nine hospitals, 172,878 in Dir Upper’s two hospitals and 115,049 in Chitral’s six hospitals will get free treatment under the programme.

He said that the number of families would increase as soon as the people started registration with Nadra.

“We had 1.1 million families in Zone 1 in April and the number has now reached 1.3 million,” he said.

He added that earlier they had expected the total number of families in KP 6.6 million that was likely to reach seven million.

The programme was launched in collaboration with KfW, a German bank, in four districts in 2015 covering three per cent population of the province and was extended to 51 per cent population in 2016 and 69 per cent in 2017 and the entire province in 2020 due to the government’s keen interest.

“Registration with Nadra will help the families. If a death is registered in a family, it will have Rs1 million for the health coverage of four members. Nadra’s family size is five,” he said.

A public awareness drive will be launched to speed up registration of marriages, births and deaths to streamline the programme.

Nadra will be updating the record every six months. Under the prevalent system, there will be problems in traceability of the record, however, the patients will receive free treatment as they will be getting services through the families of their parents.

“The programme will benefit people in availing health services as well as will lead to upgradation of Nadra’s record because people will get register deaths, marriages and births with Nadra,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2020