PESHAWAR: State Life Insurance Corporation, which is implementing the Sehat Card Plus programme, has halted free kidney and liver transplants and some cancer treatments due to non-payment of outstanding dues by the government under the free treatment scheme.

The health department has conducted more than 100 renal and 30 liver transplants free of cost under the SCP so far, according to sources. They said that the rate of a single liver transplant was Rs5.2 million and that of kidney transplant Rs1.4 million, which was not affordable for most of the patients. For the last two weeks, these procedures have been stopped.

The State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC) has been implementing the programme on behalf of the provincial government and the latter is required to make payment to the former in advance. However, the SLIC had never received advance payment but always got the dues belatedly, said sources in the health secretariat.

Currently, about six patients are waiting to undergo liver transplant surgeries and about 12 others are in pipeline for renal transplants but the SLIC has stopped the procedures and wants payment of its outstanding amount.

Insurance firm managing Sehat Card Plus programme seeks payment of dues

The corporation has been running the programme despite delayed payments but of late it has stopped kidney and liver transplants and some types of cancer treatments and dialysis, which need more than Rs400,000 expenses.

The sources said that government had established a reserved fund, which was utilised for expensive treatments and procedures. As per rules, the SCP refers the cases of more expensive treatment to the committee that approves reserve the funds to go-ahead to facilitate the patients.

The corporation said that it had already spent Rs50 million more than the reserve funds and wouldn’t be able to continue providing the costly healthcare to the patients on SCP.

Senior officials at the health secretariat told Dawn that the health department owed Rs18 billion to the SLIC and wanted the funds to continue with all treatments. The department paid Rs1 billion a few weeks ago and was in the process to pay to the corporation Rs2 billion more within a week, they said.

The corporation is also facing problems to enhance the packages of the hospitals for cardiac surgeries due to non-payment by the government. The province is facing issues with federal government regarding release of its dues due to which it couldn’t clear the dues of SLIC.

Sources said that many hospitals requested the government in April to revise their packages for heart surgeries because of increasing prices of implants in the international market.

Officials said that many cardiac surgeons stopped performing surgeries under the scheme due to government’s inability to increase their rates. However, the hospitals continue to receive patients but senior surgeons are yet to resume providing cardiac services to patients under the free treatment scheme.

In June this year, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had to enroll the patients of the newly-merged districts after refusal by the federal government to continue funding for their free treatment.

Officials said that it had been by pledged the government that the centre would sponsor the programme till 2023 and in case of shifting it to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, assets would also be transferred.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government required about Rs5 billion to pay for the treatment of 1.6 million residents of erstwhile tribal districts for one year. It has now been providing cashless treatment to 9.5 million people in 1,100 empanelled hospitals including 192 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

So far, 1.4 million people have benefitted from the free treatment flagship programme of the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2022