PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has planned to include dengue hemorrhagic fever in the Sehat Sahulat Programme for the free treatment of the patients of the mosquito-borne disease in empaneled hospitals.

Health officials told Dawn that the State Life Insurance Corporation, which was implementing the programme on behalf of the provincial government, was unwilling to include dengue in the free public sector healthcare initiative insisting the fever is epidemic in the province and epidemics cannot be part of the programme under the agreement it signed with the government.

They also said dengue patients could avail themselves of the free treatment in hospitals under the SSP as medical emergency, but the SLIC feared that it would be difficult to handle the influx of dengue patients.

Officials at the health secretariat told Dawn that they had asked the SSP’s management to cater for dengue patients as well as the fever wasn’t an epidemic and instead, it was a seasonal problem, which would disappear in the winter season.

State Life Insurance opposes dept’s move saying epidemics cannot be part of Sehat Sahulat Programme

They said the SSP management was told to meet the insurance company’s representatives and finalise rates for the treatment of dengue, which had so far been contracted by 1,560 people in the province.

The officials said 330 dengue cases were reported in Peshawar, where the mosquito-borne disease had been emerging as epidemic for few years.

They said most patients visited the public sector hospitals, where they weren’t charged for investigation and clinical management, unlike private hospitals, which received fee from them for the purpose.

According to officials, currently, 32 dengue patients are admitted to hospitals in the province both public sector and private ones empaneled by the SSP for free services.

They said dengue patients were likely to begin receiving free treatment in private hospitals by the middle of next week.

The officials said the SLIC avoided catering to more patients due to monetary benefits involved, but there were strict directives of the government to provide cashless treatment to dengue patients in both public and private hospitals following the allocation of over Rs20 billion for the free treatment of the residents.

They said during the last one month, 15,500 suspected patients were screened for dengue, while only one death was reported in the province.

The officials 706 patients had been recovered from the fever and the disease was likely to vanish in the winter season.

They said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had empaneled 163 of the 523 countrywide health facilities for the programme.

The officials said every district had private hospitals, where dengue patients could get free services.

Meanwhile, a report of the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System of the provincial directorate general (health services), the districts most affected by dengue included Nowshera 325 cases, Buner 232, Khyber 148, Swabi 83, Mardan 79, Mansehra 66, Bajaur 43, Swat 40, Kohat 37, Charsadda 29, Abbottabad 25, and Shangla and Haripur 24 each.

It added that the mosquito-borne disease was reported in 29 districts.

During the last one month, the province recorded 1,626 dengue cases, including 62 during the last 24 hours.

Officials in the health department said dengue was covered under the SSP as a medical emergency but the private hospitals were reluctant to handle its patients for free of charge despite advance payments to the insurance company by the government.

They, however, said the empaneled private hospitals would soon begin catering to dengue cases.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2021