PESHAWAR: The health department has delisted 71 private hospitals from the panel of Sehat Card Plus (SCP) programme for their failure to meet the new criteria developed by the government.

“The decision is part of the government’s plan to reduce the cost of free healthcare programme and ensure provision of quality services to patients. Most of the delisted hospitals are located in Peshawar where 15 of the total 28 health facilities have lost SCP’s empanelment,” sources told this scribe.

They said that the step was taken in view of the caretaker cabinet’s decision to reduce cost of the programme as the provincial government was unable to pay the cost of the free healthcare initiative. The government had empanelled 129 hospitals for providing free treatment services to patients in the province but now only 58 have been left as criteria for empanelment has been changed.

The government has taken host of decisions to cut down the cost of the programme and delisting of private hospitals is one of these steps due to which the expenditures of the free treatment scheme have gone down.

Step is part of govt’s plan to reduce cost of free treatment scheme

Sources said that 59 public sector empanelled hospitals would continue to admit patients as a strategy adopted by the government to benefit those facilities to generate income from the programme.

As the provincial government is facing huge financial problems in continuation of SCP, it has also decided to restrict seven diseases including caesarean delivery, tonsillectomy, cholecystectomy, appendectomy, cataract, angiography and septoplasty and submucosal resection (SMR) only to government hospitals.

The private hospitals are no longer carrying out these procedures due to which the cost of the programme has come down to Rs500 million from Rs2 billion in the past one month.

State Life insurance Corporation (SLIC), which implements SCP on behalf of government, has been facing the daunting task to pay to hospitals in lieu of treatment under the free health insurance programme due to which it has continued to stop and resume services during the past few months.

The government has to pay Rs25 billion to SLIC so that the firm could clear the outstanding dues of the hospitals. Last week, SLIC suspended free treatment services but restored it after two days when the government paid it Rs2 billion.

However, it has decided to provide services only to cancer patients, dialysis for kidney patients and emergency services. It is drastically cutting down the cost because medical teaching institutions have already stopped the services for non-payment of their dues.

SLIC has to pay Rs2 billion to Lady Reading Hospital, Rs1.4 billion to Peshawar Institute of Cardiology, Rs600 million to Hayatabad Medical Complex and Rs500 million to Khyber Teaching Hospital for provision of healthcare services to patients under SCP. These hospitals have already stopped the services because they have run out of medicines and other items.

Presently, only cancer patients are availing free services at Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s hospitals in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, Abbottabad and other cities across the country. Only a few patients receive dialysis and emergency services in other private hospitals of the province.

Officials said that the new steps, aimed at reducing cost of the programme, were also meant to improve standard of services. They said that under the new mechanism, five categories had been developed for different cities under which the hospitals not fulfilling the parameters would get delisted from the programme.

In January, an annual assessment would take place to register new hospitals on the basis of the new criteria and delist those with poor quality of services.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2023