PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has increased budget for Sehat Card Plus, free health scheme, to do away with outstanding amount of empanelled hospitals and ensure smooth-sailing of the programme.

State Life Insurance Corporation, the executer of the programme, was getting Rs3 billion per month from the government but the amount was increased to Rs4 billion in December. “The increase of Rs1 billion in the budget for the free treatment scheme will enable the executor to clear outstanding dues of hospitals,” official sources told this scribe.

The total annual budget for the programme has been increased from Rs36 billion to Rs48 billion. However, for the current financial year, the total budgetary allocation was Rs41 billion due to which for the first five months (July-November) government released Rs3 billion per month for the programme.

Officials said that liabilities were decreasing as at the start of the year the government owed Rs15 billion the executor that came down to Rs12 billion and would further dip to Rs8 billion by end of the year.

Enhanced amount will help executor to clear liabilities of empanelled hospitals

They said that the total annual expenditures of Sehat Card Plus (SCP) were about Rs34 billion to Rs35 billion and the rest of the amount of Rs41 billion would be utilised to pay the outstanding amount of State Life, which was empanelling hospitals on behalf of government for the scheme and paying them at the end of every month after release of funds by government.

Sources said that some of the hospitals were not getting adequate amount from the insurance company due to which doctors were not providing treatment services to patients on SCP to a desired level.

They said that Ayub Teaching Hospital Abbottabad received Rs38 million last month against the pending amount of Rs700 million.

“It is very small amount to pay to the staff of hospital involved in treatment of patients,” they said. Similarly, medical teaching institution Bannu has not been receiving money on time. It has Rs290 million unpaid amount.

Sources said that government was required to streamline the system of disbursing the due amount in order to achieve its goals from the free treatment programme.

The government needs to accord preference to public hospitals instead of private ones as far as distribution of money in lieu of SCP is concerned.

They said that hospitals located outside Peshawar required more attention to provide services to patients at local level.

“It will benefit people and reduce burden on Peshawar-based hospitals,” they said. The same issue has been affecting free healthcare programme in other hospitals, especially those located outside Peshawar.

Nevertheless, of the top 25 hospitals that admitted patients on SCP, from July 2025 to March 2026, 19 are located outside Peshawar, according to data. Of the total 948,182 patients, about 700 received treatment services in hospitals outside Peshawar.

Sources said that last year, a total of 1.2 million patients underwent free SCP care at a cost of Rs35 billion. More than 70 per cent of patients received free treatment services in districts other than Peshawar, they added.

There are 700 empanelled hospitals, including 169 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where eligible people can seek free medical services. Since February 2016, a total of 4,978,491 patients have received free diagnostic and treatment support at a cost of Rs135 billion under the programme.

The scheme covers the entire population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, consisting of 10,779,575 families having 34,542,525 individuals. Timely payment to hospitals will ensure treatment of patients in their native hospitals instead of travelling to Peshawar. Local hospitals have the same specialists and facilities like that of health facilities in Peshawar.

Officials said empanelled hospitals would get their outstanding amount as government released more funds to State Life.

“The insurer distributes funds to hospitals when it receives the amount from government,” they added.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2026