ISLAMABAD: While rumours have been doing the round about suspension of the health card service, caretaker health minister Dr Nadeem Jan on Friday said the programme was fully functional and will be further improved in future.

“Federal Sehat Sahulat Programme (SSP) will continue as per vision of the unified universal health insurance for every citizen of Pakistan with a similar co-payment mechanism from affordable segment of the population to make it sustainable. Also, we will strengthen public health system and integrate the programme with primary healthcare to make it more sustainable for the government,” the minister said while chairing a meeting of the National Steering Committee of the programme.

The meeting was attended by provincial health ministers, secretaries, chief executive officers (CEOs) of the federal and provincial Sehat Sahulat Programme, senior representatives from the ministries of National Health Services, Planning Development and Special Initiative, Finance Division, Law and Justice Division, Pakistan Baitul Mal and focal persons from AJK, GB and Nadra along with technical partners.

According to a statement, programme CEO Mohammad Arshad while briefing on the current implementation status told the participants that universal health insurance coverage was provided to 2.5 million beneficiary families of AJK, GB, Islamabad and district of Tharparkar through the federal funding.

Says facility will continue with co-payment mechanism from affordable segment of population to make it sustainable

Federal Health Secretary Iftikhar Ali Shallwani said: “We need to work hard to further improve on reassessment of empanelled hospitals and to consider high and private hospitals to enhance the benefit to the poor population at least for specialised procedures.”

Member social sector and development, Planning Commission, Rafiullah Kakar said the Ministry of Planning and Ecnec were in favour of the continuity of the programme with modified improved implementation strategies to ensure financial sustainability. He also said such beneficial programmes should be institutionalised on priority basis to benefit the citizens on long-term basis.

It may be mentioned that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had launched the health card programme on December 31, 2015, for Islamabad and described it as the first step towards making Pakistan a welfare state. He had also announced that the card programme will be expanded to all parts of Punjab, Balochistan, AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan and the Fata.

People of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) could not benefit from the initiative at that time because their governments had declined to become part of the federal government’s programme in which they also had to contribute. Later, KP launched its own health card namely Sehat Insaf Card.

During the tenure of the PTI, the programme was expanded across the country apart from most of the districts of Sindh. In April last year, some of the hospitals had suspended the service as they feared that the PML-N-led government may discontinue the programme as the PTI had promoted/marketed the programme as its initiative. However, PML-N government announced that the programme will continue.

Health card, which is also called Qaumi Sehat Card/Sehat Sahulat Programme, covers heart surgeries, insertion of stents, management of cancer, neurosurgical procedures, burn management, accident management, dialysis, intensive care management, deliveries, C-section and other medical/surgical procedures up to the limit of Rs1 million per family per year.

There is a facility of inter-provincial/inter-district portability for availing free-of-cost services from over 1,000 public sector and private empanelled hospitals.

Since the start of the health card in 2015, the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan has been dealing with the card and in 2021 it again won the contract of insurance of health cards for the next three years (2022 to 2025).

Currently, 100pc population of Islamabad, KP, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, GB and a few districts in Sindh are entitled to get free treatment of Rs1 million per family every year.

In Punjab, the caretaker government has changed the policy regarding private hospitals.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2023