RAWALPINDI: Ehsaas Tahafuz has announced its policy to extend support to cancer wards across Pakistan, said Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Dr Sania Nishtar on Friday.

She was speaking during her visit to Holy Family Hospital (HFH) to meet cancer patients and their families.

Dr Sania was welcomed by Medical Superintendent Dr Shazia Zeb and her team.

Tahafuz is now rapidly scaling up nationwide, after a successful pilot over the last two and a half years in HFH, Dr Nishtar said, adding in Pakistan, it is estimated that over 170,000 new cancer cases are reported every year and the reason why many die of the disease is because they are not able to bear the high cost of treatment.

Ehsaas Tahafuz is the government’s sister programme alongside Sehat Sahulat to protect the vulnerable population from catastrophic health expenditures.

A facilitation desk has also been established at HFH to identify patients eligible for the programme which is already running in 10 hospitals and offers 900 packages across 21 departments.

“Cancer is the most common cause of catastrophic health expenditures. Since cancer treatment is most expensive, Ehsaas Tahafuz is now ready to integrate cancer related packages in its scope of support,” she said.

Later, Dr Nishtar met with a team of medical experts, hospital administrators and programme verifiers to review progress of the programme.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2022