PESHAWAR: With the State Life Insurance Corporation fully restoring the Sehat Card Plus in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Ramazan 1, the health department has decided to form a committee to “review”the health insurance programme for which 118 hospitals have been empanelled in the province.

“Patients can avail themselves of free treatment under the Sehat Card Plus in 118 hospitals, including 60 public sector and 58 private ones, from the first day of Ramazan. A committee will be notified by the health department to ‘review the overall design’ of this health programme, especially the selection of hospitals for it,” SCP chief executive officer Dr Mohammad Riaz Tanoli told Dawn.

He said patients could avail themselves of services for all diseases, including liver and renal transplants, free of charge under the programme.

Dr Tanoli said 10.2 million families, or 32.2 million people, who held computerised national identity cards issued in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, were eligible to get cashless treatment in hospitals of their choice.

It asks hospitals to resume Sehat Card Plus at start of Ramazan

He said every family was entitled to Rs1 million free healthcare annually, while people requiring liver and renal transplants would also be covered by the SCP though their costs were as high as Rs5 million and Rs1.4 million each, respectively.

The CEO said 159 people in the province had already undergone renal transplants and 64 liver transplants under the programme.

He said the patients would begin getting free care as soon as the SCP resumed.

“We will register more hospitals for the health insurance scheme after getting the consent of the board overseeing the Sehat Card Plus due to the high patient load. There will be strict criteria for the selection of hospitals to ensure patients get quality services,” he said.

Dr Tanoli said all empaneled hospitals had been formally asked to start catering to patients registered for the Sehat Card, while patients were required to send their CNIC numbers to the designated toll free number for verification before going to the hospitals.

Meanwhile, the State Life Insurance Corporation, the SCP’s implementer, has announced the resumption of the health insurance programme in line with the directives of newly-elected Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur.

Currently, residents registered for the SCP can avail themselves of the treatment for emergency conditions, cancer, and dialysis. The caretaker government didn’t release any funds for the programme since October last year.

In a statement, the SLIC said the decision to fully restore the health insurance scheme was made in a meeting chaired by the new CM on March 7.

It asks empanelled hospitals to make all necessary arrangements for the treatment of patients under the programme.

“Hospitals should establish counters for patient facilitation, programme branding, and display of helpline numbers to provide uninterrupted services to all people,” he said.

The insurer, which stopped and resumed services many times in the last 18 months due to a delay in payments by the government, has also agreed to gradually clear the dues of the hospitals.

Officials said the SLIC, which had stopped the programme over the non-payment of Rs17 billion by the government, would get Rs5 billion on Monday.

They added that the insurer would clear half of the dues of the hospitals within two weeks of the resumption of the programme, while the rest of the payment would be made in the next few months.

The officials said the government would pay Rs3 to the SLIC on a monthly basis starting next month.

They said the SLIC had to pay Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital Rs2 billion, Peshawar Institute of Cardiology Rs1.6 billion, Hayatabad Medical Complex Rs600 million and Khyber Teaching Hospital Rs500 million.

The officials also said district headquarters hospitals and MTIs, too, desperately needed government funding to cater to visitors. They said after the resumption of the health insurance scheme, the hospitals would start admitting registered poor patients, especially those with cardiac issues.

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2024