PESHAWAR: The Sehat Card Plus has been the major election slogan of the candidates of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf that pioneered the health insurance programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Under the programme, 2.78 million people in the province have got free treatment since 2016 at the cost of Rs70 billion.

As the election draws nearer, the PTI candidates have been using the SCP in their meetings to remind the people of the free health initiative. They complain to voters that the caretakers have restricted the programme to just three diseases, including cancer, dialysis and emergencies. The monthly cost has dropped from Rs2.5 billionto less than Rs280 million, according to them.

Officials said the programme that covered the entire population benefited cardiac cases (28 per cent), those of general surgery and gynecology (12 per cent each), medical (six per cent), orthopedic, neurosurgery and cancer (five per cent each), urology (four per cent), ear, nose and throat and eye ((three per cent each), andliver and renal transplants and other procedures(16 per cent).

PTI nominees solicit votes over scheme’s success

They said the patients received services in 1,100 empanelled hospitals across the country with 62pc seeking care in private and 38pc in public hospitals.

The beneficiaries also included 64 patients who underwent liver transplant each at the cost of Rs5m and 158 kidney transplants at Rs1.4 million, according to them.

The PTI leaders said the SCP was unique in a sense that the government paid a premium to the insurance company on behalf of the people. Worldwide, people pay a premium.

They insisted that allegations of mistreatments and unnecessarysurgeries were levelled againstprivate hospitalsbut the patients stayed satisfied in the face of their free treatment.

Authorities continued to remove the hospitals involved in malpractices and empaneled new ones but people continued to throng the hospitals, according to them.

The programme was launched in four districts in 2015 with the collaboration with the German bank KfW covering three per cent of the province’s population. It was extended to 51 per cent of the population next year, 69 per cent in 2017 and the entire province in 2020. Most of the people, who availed themselves of free healthcare were between 21 and 50 years, the PTI nominees said.

They said under the programme, each of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s family was entitled to receive health services up to Rs1 million annually free of charge. The SCP’s KP model was replicated in Punjab, Balochistan, parts of Sindh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan.

They also said malebeneficiaries of the programme (52pc) outnumbered male ones (48pc), while a few transgender persons also benefited from it.

The PTI nominees saidthe situation of the programme was next to zero as the people could avail emergency services, cancer treatment and dialysis in only divisional headquarters.

They said prior to the arrival of caretakers, residents with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s national identity cards were eligible to get services in the designated hospitals in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and other cities outside the province.

The PTI nominees, who will contest the Feb 8 polls independently, are asking the people to use their identity cards to vote for them to ensure the restoration of the SCP.

The programme is unlikely to resume as the government is unable to pay Rs20 billion dues of the State Life Insurance Corporation, the implementer of the programme.

Observers claim the widespread popularity of the SCP is likely to benefit the PTI’s nominees in the electoral battle.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2024