Afghan refugees in K-P to miss out on Sehat Sahulat Card

Officials say UNHCR offered to pay the insurance premium but December exit deadline makes it moot

PESHAWAR: With the federal government not keen to extend the stay of Afghan refugees in the country beyond December 2018, the provincial government has decided to help the centre’s cause by withdrawing its health insurance policy for registered Afghan refugees.

In December 2015, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government had launched a social protection scheme, Sehat Sahulat Card, whereby the government pays a premium to insurance companies who in turn pay for the individual expenditures incurred for treating different illness.



The programme covers hospitalisation charges of up to Rs0.54 million per annum for every household, Rs0.3 million for secondary care and up to Rs24 million for tertiary care. The government pays a premium of Rs1,499 per household to the insurance company.

The project had been launched with financial support from the German government through the KfW Development Bank worth Rs1.23 billion. It was initially launched in four districts of K-P including Mardan, Chitral, Malakand and Kohat.

After receiving a positive response, the programme was expanded to a few other districts.

Encouraged by results of the first phase, the provincial government then launched the second phase of the scheme, providing free medical services to some 14 million residents of the province at a cost of Rs5.36 billion. Currently, the social protection scheme covers over 50 per cent of the underprivileged population of the province.

After the programme was extended to cover professionals like lawyers and journalists, the provincial government was urged to extend the facility to the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who still inhabit the province.



“Yes, we were asked by the United Nation High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) officials that the agency will pay the premium if the government registered refugees under the scheme,” a health official dealing with the programme disclosed.

The official added that since the provincial government was already running the programme, it just needed to issue the cards (to registered refugees only). However, for this purpose, they designed cards which were visibly different from the regular cards issued to Pakistani citizens including in their colour, shape and design.

The official, who refused to identify himself since he was not entitled to speak to the media, stated that talks on issuing cards to Afghan refugees were underway but since the federal government was reluctant to extend the stay of refugees in Pakistan, officials realised that extending the social health protection scheme to Afghan refugees would be an exercise in futility.

“Yes, if they will have to leave, then there is no need to register them print [separate] cards since there is no need anymore,” the official said, adding that the UNCHR had communicated with them on the issue twice but there has only been silence ever since.

Sehat Sahulat Programme chief Riaz Tanoli could not be reached for an official version despite repeated attempts on his phone.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2018.