Soft loans : Health Foundation to go digital

The idea is to promote transparency, PHF director says

LAHORE: The Punjab Information Technology Board has been working with the Punjab Health Foundation (PHF) to make the foundation vibrant and effective, PHF Managing Director Sohail Saqlain said on Wednesday.

He said the first step towards streamlining the PHF’s work would be to digitise all operations. The process of obtaining applications for interest-free loans, tracking the loan application, issuing loans, paying instalments, monitoring services and the process of taking action against defaulters would be carried out online. “We hope this promotes merit and transparency.”

Saqlain said that he had been at the PHF for two months during which, doctors had been issued loans amounting to Rs25.178 million. He said the foundation had recovered Rs6.731 million from doctors in this duration.

The scope of the foundation would be enhanced and soft loans would also be extended to professionals attached with allied health sciences. “Anyone who contributes to and provides healthcare services should be given such opportunities.”

He said that the smart loan scheme had been introduced in collaboration with the Akhuwat Foundation.

Saqlain said clinics for treatment of eye diseases would be set up in the province with technical assistance from the King Edward Medical University’s Institute of Ophthalmology. The Punjab Health Foundation would provide loans to eye specialists at these clinics. A meeting of the PHF Board of Directors has been called on September 7 to discuss these issues.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2016.