PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has pledged to extend coverage of Sehat Card Plus to entire population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa again after coming to power in the next general elections.

“Imran Khan has envisioned a welfare state. Resuming universal health coverage is the first thing we will do again,” former health minister Taimur Khan Jhagra said.

Taking exception to the caretaker government’s move of limiting healthcare to 65 per cent population on Sehat Card Plus (SCP), he said that government managed to stop providing free treatment services to 40 million residents of KP despite the fact it was not the mandate of caretakers. He said that caretaker government could not make such major policy decisions.

On Thursday, the government decided to limit total free healthcare on SCP to only 65 per cent population of the province while the remaining 35 per cent will pay a certain portion of the amount spent on their treatment under the programme. The government cited financial woes of the province as reason for making the decision.

Ex-minister Jhagra criticises caretakers for making policy decisions

Mr Jhagra, however, termed the decision illogical, shocking and disappointing. He said that at a time of historic inflation, the health system should support the lower and middle classes instead of depriving them of the free treatment facility.

“It is completely false to say that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa does not have the finances as its balances should now top over Rs50 billion. Funny that the caretaker government could approve salary increments for bureaucrats worth Rs100 billion including doubling the secretariat allowances for employees besides spending Rs20 billion in a month on free wheat flour for political purposes,” he said.

The former minister said that bureaucrats or unelected ministers were not worried about 40 million people of the province. “A laughable proposal to say those with pay under Rs31,000 will get health insurance free of cost when in the same cabinet meeting the minimum pay was increased to Rs32000,” he added.

The free health initiative was started by the PTI government in collaboration with Germany in 2016 from four districts covering three per cent population of the province only. Later, the programme was started by the provincial government from its own resources and began covering the entire population in November 2020 in a phase-wise manner.

As time passed, the government included new diseases in the list and raised the number of empanelled hospitals as number of patients kept rising.

So far, 2.46 million patients have received cashless health services at a cost of Rs61.6 billion. The procedures included 64 liver transplants, the cost of which was Rs5 million per case, and 159 renal transplants costing Rs1.4 million each. However, with the arrival of caretakers, the free transplantation had already been stopped for lack of money. More than 24 patients waiting for liver transplant and renal transplants were left and dry.

Meanwhile, the State Life Insurance Corporation, which implements the programme on behalf of the government, has been stopping and resuming the programme for want of money. On four occasions, the scheme was suspended and restored during the past few months. A few days ago, the government released Rs6 billion of the total payable Rs21.6 billion to the insurer while Rs15.6 billion still remains unpaid.

The programme pioneered by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was subsequently replicated in Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and parts of Sindh.

The caretaker government, however, argued that it was not possible to provide free health services to all the population of the province and the new measure to make it free for poor and make the rich to contribute to cost of treatment under the SCP would make the scheme sustainable.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2023