PESHAWAR: The health department is likely to revise rates of cardiac procedures under Sehat Card Plus programme after requests by empanelled hospitals owing to surge in the prices of implants in the international market as local currency has depreciated against dollar, according to sources.

Recently, the hospitals empanelled for heart surgeries and other procedures under Sehat Card Plus wrote a letter to State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC), pointing out that the cost of implants in the international markets had risen due to depreciation of rupee against dollar. They requested for increase in rates of the procedures.

The SLIC, which is implementing the free treatment programme on behalf of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, has signed contracts with all the hospitals wherein rates for different operations have been fixed. During the last few months, the rupee faced more depreciation against dollar owing to which the hospitals have demanded increase in their rates.

Doctors in private and government hospitals told Dawn that all the implants were imported in dollar due to which the margin of profitability had decreased. They said that imported stent was available at Rs100,000 and local at Rs20,000 but as per agreement’s policy they were bound to provide quality treatment to patients on SCP.

Hospitals seek increase owing to surging prices of implants in international market

“Therefore, we have sent genuine demand to the government to allow increase in rate so that the patients can get quality services and prevent complications in treatment,” they said.

The government has so far spent Rs26.58 billion on the treatment of 1.085 million patients on SCP including 30 per cent heart patients. Most of the cardiac procedures have been conducted in private hospitals as Peshawar Institute of Cardiology (PIC) is the only public sector facility offering the services to cardiac patients.

Officials in health department said that a meeting with representatives of the empanelled hospitals would be held on Tuesday wherein issues relating to the cardiac procedures and their rates would be discussed. They conceded that the issue raised by the hospitals was genuine and the government wanted to continue providing free of cost treatment facilities to patients owing to which the representatives of the empanelled hospitals had been invited to resolve the issue.

“Not only free treatment but provision of quality health services is the major aim of the programme. The government doesn’t want to compromise on the quality of the treatment, therefore, it has been decided to sit with the representatives of hospitals and accept their demand for increase in the rates,” they said.

However, the officials said that they expected that the hospitals wouldn’t push the government for unjust revision of the rates to ensure that the patients continued to get quality services as per international standards.

During the last one week, from July 18 to July 25, a total of 52 cardiac procedures have been performed on SCP, costing Rs15.46 million.

The government has registered 1,100 hospitals countrywide including 192 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where 9.5 million families of the province and the newly-merged districts are entitled to avail treatment costing up to Rs1 million. Under the programme, patients are entitled to Rs5 million and Rs1.4 million treatment expenses for liver and renal transplants, respectively. However, the major portion of the amount under SCP is spent on cardiac patients.

Meanwhile, spokesman for Rehman Medical Institute (RMI) Peshawar told Dawn that statements by some of its doctors regarding stopping heart surgeries was their personal view as the institute continue to facilitate the patients on SCP as per contract with the health department.

“There is no fact in the media news about suspension of heart procedures and the patients have been getting uninterrupted services for the past one year,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2022