NAROWAL: Only 3,901 people got the facility of free treatment from private hospitals under Prime Minister’s Health Card Scheme during the last six months, showing lack of public interest in the scheme.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had launched the project in Narowal on Jan 12, 2017 in order to provide free treatment facilities to the deserving and low-income people.

The cards were issued to over 60,000 families in the district. All the members of a family could get medical treatment from the private hospitals on the panel, ranging from Rs50,000 to 250,000.

Six hospitals, namely Akram Hospital, Hussain Medical & Surgical Hospital, Shukar Din Surgical Hospital, Chaudhry Sarwar Hospital and Zahra Surgical and Children Hospital, are on the panel in district. But during the last six months, only 3,901 card-holder patients contacted the private hospitals in Narowal for treatment. Of them, 876 patients were operated upon.

The government should launch an awareness campaign on the electronic and print media to convince the people to use health cards to make the project successful.

District Council Chairman Ahmad Iqbal Chaudhry said an awareness campaign would be started at the union council level soon to urge the people to use the health card more.

The patients, Nazeeran Bibi of Domalah, Haider Ali of Dairianwalah and Muhammad Nasir of Ganj Husainabad, who had got treatment by using the health cards lauded the scheme and thanked the prime minister for launching it.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2017