PESHAWAR: Health department is unlikely to resume full services on Sehat Card Plus (SCP) as government is not paying outstanding amount to State Life Insurance Corporation, the implementer of free healthcare programme in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to sources.

“The insurer is in no mood to restore full services on SCP because it wants the government to clear the unpaid dues amounting to Rs20 billion. Only Rs2 billion has been paid to SLIC in October,” they said.

Sources in health department told Dawn that government was likely to pay some amount to SLIC next month but not before December 15 owing to which the services would remain suspended.

Last month, the insurer suspended services but later announced that it would provide free services to patients of cancer, dialysis and emergency when the government released Rs2 billion while complete treatment would resume only after payment of at least Rs8 billion or more in one go.

Govt unlikely to pay dues to executor of free treatment scheme

Sources said that free health insurance suffered a huge blow since the end of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government, which launched the programme in the province. “Since installation of caretaker government, SCP has been suspended and resumed about six times, for the reason of non-payment,” they added.

Health department has been trying to reduce the cost of the programme by taking different steps including stoppage of renal and liver transplants, cutting down number of empanelled hospitals, changing the edibility criteria from 100 per cent population to 66 per cent and restricting seven procedures to public sector hospitals. However, shortage of funds has been the stumbling block to resume full services at a time when the awareness level of the people about the programme has gone up.

Sources said that since 2016, more than Rs65 billion had been spent on free treatment of more than 23million people in the province. The PTI government announced Rs28 billion annual cost of the programme but given the feeble financial position, the caretaker provincial setup is finding it hard to continue the scheme.

“Health department has removed 70 private hospitals from the SCP’s panel and now only 60 are in place to receive patients only for emergency treatments,” they said. The department wants the remaining private hospitals to leave the programme on their own as government has decided to restrict SCP only to the government-run hospitals and reduce the cost to Rs8 billion per year.

SLIC, which is getting lesser amount from the government in lieu of SCP, is paying to private hospitals only while state-run health facilities are not receiving a huge amount from the programme.

Sources said that the insurance firm wanted the government to pay it in bulk its unpaid amount so that it could pay to the public as well as private hospitals.

All the public sector hospitals have stopped taking patients on SCP for the past one month as SLIC is unable to clear their amount. Public sector hospitals including Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Peshawar Institute of Cardiology are under severe financial constraints as government has been releasing the budget only for salaries. As a result, patients buy medicines, syringes and injections from the market.

These tertiary care hospitals are facing problems in management of critically-ill and injured patients, who require lifesaving essential drugs but they are not getting these due to the reluctance of suppliers that wanted clearance of their dues first.

“Hospitals are waiting for SLIC to mitigate their financial woes but indications are that no money will be released by the government at least by December 15,” said sources.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2023