PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has selected 130 hospitals for free treatment of people under Sehat Card Plus scheme.

Of the empanelled hospitals, 77 are private and 53 are public sector health facilities. Authorities included hospitals in the scheme in many districts where no facility was part of the programme and patients had to go to Peshawar or nearby areas for seeking cashless treatment.

The new empanelment exercise began two months ago on the directives of Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, who wanted to facilitate more patients under the programme in their native districts.

A total of 271 hospitals, including 195 public and 76 private, had applied to be enlisted for treatment on SCP. The programme, started in 2015 in four districts with coverage to extremely poor population, was later extended to the entire province in a phase-wised manner. Now, all residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa can avail free treatment services at public and private hospitals under the programme.

77 of the selected facilities are in private sector

The hospitals have been approved for secondary and tertiary care services on the basis of assessment. They have been issued rate lists with the request to accept or otherwise.

Sources said that most hospitals would accept the terms and conditions, including rates for services, while the health facilities that were rejected during the inspection started to pressurise adviser on health to chief minister to get empanelled.

They said that the owners of hospitals thronged the provincial metropolis along with their respective MPAs to impress upon the adviser regarding non-acceptance of their application, wanting to get empanelled. However, the health adviser categorically conveyed to them that the approval to hospitals had been accorded by Policy Board after though assessment by the relevant staff, they added.

Sources said that during the current drive to select hospitals fort the scheme, the authorities also carried out assessment of already registered hospitals and final selection was made and approved by Policy Board.

They said that many private hospitals were owned by influential people in different districts. “They are now applying pressure but the government is not going to bow down to the pressure tactics as during the past few years several hospitals have been de-listed for being involved in illegal practices,” they added.

They said that the free treatment programme was suspended by caretaker government, which restricted services to only three emergency health conditions citing financial crunch but Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, which pioneered the initiative in the province, restored the scheme on March 12 after forming government in the province. They said that so far Rs19 billion had been spent on SCP since its resumption.

Officials in health department said that there would be no compromise on selection of hospitals because government was paying taxpayers’ money to the empanelled hospitals to ensure quality medical care of people.

They said that the newly-designated hospitals included facilities run under public-private partnership in Kohistan, Orakzai, Chitral and new hospitals in Khyber, Dera Ismail Khan, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Karak and in merged districts, which would help patients. They said that few private hospitals opted out because they wanted upward revision of rates as the existing rates were approved five years ago and cost of healthcare, gas and electricity had gone up during that period.

Officials said that government recently enhanced rates for cardiac services under the scheme because hospitals argued that they imported implants from abroad in dollars and local currency was depreciated. They said that after one year of discussion, government finally enhanced their rates.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2024