PESHAWAR, May 27: The NWFP Government is planning to introduce social health insurance (SHI) to ensure equitable and quality health delivery for government employees in the province, an official said.

“We have already prepared a draft model of the SHI that will be discussed with the stakeholders at a seminar to be held in the third week of June,” said the official associated with the preparation of the draft model, adding that after their feedback necessary changes would be incorporated into the model before going for legislation.

In this regard, he said that an international seminar had also been planned wherein delegates from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Yemen, etc would take part. He said that the provincial government paid a staggering amount of Rs1.35 billion to its 290,000 employees under the head of drug reimbursement in 2006.

According to the draft model developed with the financial and technical assistance of the GTZ, employees would be required to pay 3.5 per cent of their income per month.

He said that the employees would get health benefits.

“Under the scheme the healthy would pay for ill employees and their dependents. The scheme will also allow the people to contact doctors for minor ailments because they will not pay extra amount for doctors and the drugs prescribed to them,” he added.

The SHI was first introduced by Germany in 1883. Within a period of 100 years, France, Korea, Thailand, Japan, Kenya, Colombia, Ghana, Egypt, Rwanda, Philippines, Nigeria, Mexico, Ukraine and Taiwan and other countries followed suit. Recently, Indonesia also passed a law to pave the way for introduction of the scheme.

The official said that at present government employees drew a huge amount under the head of medical bills, but the scheme would ensure an equitable health delivery system for all.

He said that the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the GTZ were supporting the government to introduce the new system.

He said that once finalized, after receiving feedback from employees and international experts, recommendation would be sent to the government regarding the scheme, adding that it would be followed by legislation at the provincial level.

He said that after completion of the process of legislation the services of a company would be hired to implement the system, adding that the Sindh government had recently signed an agreement with a private company to provide health insurance to its 4,000 provincial secretariat employees.

Under the system, he said the poor tend to use less expensive local facilities whereas the rich disproportionately use more expensive hospital services.

He said that health insurance promotes good health by lowering the personal cost of services and also by inducing individuals to seek medical care earlier than they would otherwise, thereby heading off potentially serious consequences.