PESHAWAR: The health department has begun the selection of more government and private health facilities in districts for the people entitled to treatment under the Sehat Sahulat Programme.

The Sehat Sahulat Programme (SSP) started in January last year has been providing free treatment to the people holding Sehat Insaf Cards (SIC) in 110 hospitals across the province.

The initiative launched with an outlay of Rs5.4 billion for a period of three years is meant to provide treatment up to Rs540,000 per family at the government and private hospitals.

Initially, it covered 1.8 million families or 51 percent of the population. A total of 600,000 more families were added to the programme this year and thus, taking its coverage to 69 percent population and attracting Rs1 billion more allocations.

The relevant officials told Dawn that the health department was increasing the number of hospitals at the district level to facilitate more patients and had begun a survey for the purpose.

Dept begins exercise to select well-equipped health facilities in districts for the purpose

They said a report of the new survey would be analysed after completion to pave the way for the selection of new hospitals.

The officials said the programme had a slow start as the people didn’t know much about it but currently as there was a general awareness among patients, the government felt the need to extend its coverage to more hospitals.

They said Rs2 billion had so far been spent on the treatment of the SIC-holders.

The officials said the patients of heart-related problems were the main beneficiaries of the programme, followed by the people, who either underwent general surgeries or got mother and child care.

They said the department wanted to upgrade health facilities at the district level so that the patients could be treated at the local level and those with chronic problems could visit tertiary care hospitals.

The officials said the private and government hospitals were making every effort to earn from the programme as the hospitals were paid at the end of every month for the patients treated through the State Life Insurance Corporation, which was implementing the SSP on behalf of the provincial government.

They said in Swat, three private hospitals were likely to be placed on the SSP panel due to the upgradation of the facilities as two of them had already got the services of cardiothoracic surgeons.

The officials said the health department wanted to develop facilities for heart surgeries at the district level as currently, most such patients visited Peshawar for the purpose.

They said patients would soon start getting services for heart diseases and a cath lab was being set up in Bannu district, while for the first time, dialysis services would be offered to the patients of kidney diseases in Battagram district.

The officials said the Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar, had one cath lab and the second one was established in Dec last year where seven SIC-holders had undergone bypass heart surgeries.

They said they considered the current facilities and human resources before registering hospitals for the SSP for the provision of quality diagnosis and treatment to the people.

The officials said last year, around 100,000 patients benefited from the programme under which the families with the daily income of $2-$3 were selected in line with the criteria of the Benazir Income Support Programme.

They said the upgradation of facilities under the SSP would not only benefit the SIC-holders but the general patients would also get better services at the hospitals.

The officials said the programme had set a competition among private and public hospitals with patients being the ultimate beneficiaries.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2018