PESHAWAR: The State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC) has restored free healthcare services on Sehat Card Plus after their suspension for 24 hours over non-payment of dues to it by the caretaker government.

The resumption of services was notified after payment of Rs2 billion to the insurance company, prompting the insurer to ask the empanelled hospitals to resume the services immediately and start hospitalisation of patients under Sehat Card Plus programme.

On Wednesday, the insurance company had issued instructions to all the hospitals to suspend free health services under the programme immediately.

Speaking at a news conference, Prof Abid Jameel, the adviser on health to caretaker chief minister, said that Rs2 billion was paid to the insurance firm and a similar amount would be given to it after Eidul Fitr.

“Owing to non-payment of Rs238 billion dues to the provincial government by the centre, the province is facing difficulties including suspension of Sehat Card Plus scheme. The issue has been brought into the notice of chief minister. Our government had no intension to do away with the free health insurance scheme,” he said.

The health card scheme was suspended over non-payment of dues to SLIC

However, he said that they had planned to bring improvement in the scheme so that people could receive quality services.

Prof Abid, a former head of oncology department at Hayatabad Medical Complex, said that nowhere in the world 100 per cent population received free health services. There would be no financial issues in the province if the cashless treatment facilities were provided only to deserving people, he added.

He said that so far, 66 per cent patients received free services in private hospitals and 34 per cent in public sector health facilities. Some of the private hospitals were not eligible to be empanelled for SCP but the former government included those facilities in the programme, he said.

Prof Abid said that the caretaker government was considering solid measures to make the services on SCP more transparent. “For this purpose a committee comprising the officials of health department and healthcare commission will be tasked to carry out inspections of the empanelled hospitals and decide about their eligibility,” he added.

Earlier, former provincial health minister Taimur Khan Jhagra criticised the caretaker setup for suspending the programme and said that SCP started by the PTI government was benefitting 120,000 people per month.

“There is no issue of money but the government hasn’t paid any instalment to the insurance company during the past two months, which led to suspension of the programme,” he said. He added that the caretaker government distributed substandard wheat flour worth Rs20 billion among people without any lawful authorisation but it could not give Rs4 billion to the company to keep the programme going.

Mr Jhagra said that the caretakers should stay away from taking policy decisions. He warned them of drastic consequences if they continued intervention in policy matters.

He said that SCP was legally protected. He said that province’s total budgetary outlay was Rs1300 billion and only Rs30 billion was the annual expenditure of SCP.

“The caretakers, who should be neutral, are bent upon taking the facilities from the poor people,” said the former minister. He said that the PDM government stopped free health services in Punjab when Maryam Nawaz asked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to do so.

He said that the caretakers left aside their constitutional duty of holding free and fair elections and started indulging in matters that didn’t come in their domain.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2023