PESHAWAR: Kidney patients on Thursday demonstrated to push the government for restoring free dialysis service for them.

Shouting slogans outside the Peshawar Press Club, the protesters said the provincial government had shut the “reserve fund” for the Sehat Card health insurance programme, troubling patients needing regular dialysis.

Riaz Khan, Mohammad Ali, Arshad Ali, Farmanullah, Rashid Mughal, Mohammad Usman, Rais Khan and Zainullah Khan said a kidney patient needed dialysis three times a week and if that didn’t happen on time, toxic substances accumulated in the body, threatening the life of patients.

The protestors said dialysis was not available under the Sehat Card programme but it was covered free of charge by the zakat system.

They said for the last three years, the provincial government had included dialysis in the Sehat Card programme.

The demonstrators said dialysis cost around 8,000, while the doctor’s fee and medicines cost millions of rupees every month.

They added that when the health insurance programme ran out of funds, patients had to undergo the expensive dialysis exercise from their own expenses.

The patients demanded of the provincial government to provide dialysis completely free of charge to them or remove it from the Sehat Card scheme and immediately restore the relevant reserve fund. They also called for free medical and other services for patients to ease their misery.

They warned that if the provincial government did not accept those demands, they would protest outside the provincial assembly.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2025