PESHAWAR: More than 66,000 patients have received free treatment in different hospitals under Sehat Sahulat Programme during the past four months, according to officials.

They said that since the SSP’s extension to the whole province, the number of beneficiaries had increased. They added that a total of 200,000 patients were treated under SSP since 2016 when it covered low-income population.

However, the free health initiative has benefitted 66,785 patients during the last four months after extension of the programme to all districts of the province. The largest number of the beneficiaries of the programme consists of the people suffering from renal ailments as 10,721 patients have undergone free dialysis at public and private hospitals.

About 3,432 women underwent caesarean operations for complicated deliveries while 3,230 heart patients availed free angiography services during the past four months under SSP. Under the programme, 2,842 patients were operated upon for bilateral tonsillitis, 2,830 for normal deliveries, 2,761 for appendectomies and 2,552 for cataract etc.

Officials said that most patients were treated in Malakand division where cashless medical services programme was started in November. The hospitals there have received about 28,000 patients including 6,960 in Lower Dir and 5,815 in Malakand and other districts.

Most SSP beneficiaries are people suffering from renal ailments

The programme was extended to the entire province in January.

Peshawar has the fast-growing tally of beneficiaries of SSP, which has received 4,920 patients during the past two months. “The provincial capital has more empaneled hospitals and people have awareness about the programme,” said officials.

Initially, SSP was launched in collaboration with KfW, a German bank, in four districts in 2015 covering three per cent population of the province. It was extended to 51 per cent population in 2016, then to 69 per cent in 2017 and to the entire province in 2020.

Before extension of the programme to the entire province, 200,000 poor patients were treated at a cost of Rs7 billion. However, after the coverage of the whole population, the number of patients shot-up three times.

Now all the 6.6 million families of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are entitled to free diagnostic and treatment services in 177 government and public sector hospitals regardless of their financial status.

“Selection of hospitals is a continuing process. We will empanel 300 hospitals in the province,” said officials.

The State Life Insurance Corporation, which was selected after a competitive bidding process, is implementing the flagship scheme on behalf of health department under which people possessing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s identity cards are eligible for free services for diseases requiring hospitalisation.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government pays to the insurance firm Rs2,849 per family annually.

The government has pledged Rs18 billion as annual cost of the programme for which Rs10 billion has already been allocated. People also get Rs1,000 maternity allowance, Rs2,000 tertiary care transportation charges and Rs10,000 funeral compensation in case of death under the programme.

Each family has Rs1 million credit and its members can spend the amount for treatment of diseases in any designated hospital in the province or outside.

After the success of the programme, started by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and replicated in Punjab, Balochistan, parts of Sindh and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the donor agencies have expressed keenness to support the initiative but authorities concerned want to keep purely a government’s programme.

Officials said that health department had pondered the programme and did not want to involve donor agencies in it.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2021