PESHAWAR: The State Life Insurance Corporation has again restored free healthcare services on Sehat Card Plus after assurance of clearing its unpaid amount by the government.

On Tuesday, the insurer suspended treatment on SCP, citing non-payment of dues as the reason.

However, the services were restored on Wednesday after the caretaker chief minister, Mohammad Azam Khan, took exception to the stoppage of free treatment facilities on SCP and issued instructions to resume operations on priority basis by making arrangements for immediate payment of dues to SLIC, the implementer of the scheme.

On the directives of the chief minister, the quarters concerned assured the insurance company of paying its outstanding dues within a week that promoted the firm to restart free treatment facilities, a press release said.

CM orders payment of dues to State Life

The insurer on Wednesday issued another notification, asking the hospitals that its order issued on Tuesday regarding suspension of free treatment services stood withdrawn. “The programme will continue till August 31,” said the notification.

Reacting to suspension of cashless treatment services, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader and former health minister Taimur Khan Jhagra said that new ministers were fighting over portfolios.

He said in a tweet that he had never seen mismanagement at that level. “A complete shame on the entire caretaker setup doing this to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he said. He added that there were no financial constraints and the government had enough money to continue the scheme and benefit people.

Senior physicians at public sector hospitals told Dawn that the government had been playing cat and mouse game with the programme as it had suspended and restored the scheme on at least three occasions.

They said that during the PTI government, the programme had smooth sailing because SLIC received funds regularly for disbursement among the empanelled hospitals.

They said that PTI, which initiated the free health insurance scheme from covering three per cent population in four districts in 2016, extended it to the entire province in November 2019 in a phase-wise manner.

“Not only the programme kept expanding coverage of the population but more diseases were included in it from time to time due to which people received highly expensive treatment such as liver transplant,” said a senior surgeon.

He said that more than 130 persons underwent renal transplants, which was not possible for them without the SCP as the procedure was conducted at Rs1.4 million.

He said that heart patients remained the major beneficiaries of the scheme as they received quality services at good hospitals including Peshawar Institute of Cardiology, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Lady Reading Hospital in addition to private hospitals where patients, who were not able to pay for cardiac surgeries, received treatment on SCP.

Sources in SLIC said that they had a total of Rs18 billion payable amount to the government to be paid to the empanelled hospitals and keep the services afloat.

“In such a situation, even if the services get restored on the government’s request, the service-providers at the hospitals have adopted go-slow approach as they required their money,” they said.

The SLIC is implementing the programme for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s population in more than 1,100 hospitals across the country. “The firm wants to continue it but wants the government to issue funds on monthly basis so that people can get uninterrupted services,” they said.

Health authorities, meanwhile, continue to prevail upon the finance department to ensure cash flow to the firm on regular basis so that the scheme can be carried on.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2023