Public healthcare: Govt to issue 25m health insurance cards

Kiani says will upgrade facilities at Benazir Bhutto Hospital

RAWALPINDI: Government will start a country-wide free health insurance programme enabling poor and needy people access quality healthcare, Minister for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination Aamir Mahmood Kiani said Sunday.

“The government will issue almost 25 million Health Insurance Cards (HIC) to the poor and needy people by the beginning of next month,” Kiani said during his visit to Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH).

During the visit to Rawalpindi’s largest public healthcare facility, the minister inquired after the health of the patients and visited different wards.

Later talking to the media, he said the government would announce new health policy soon. The healthcare system of Pakistan is beset with numerous problems mainly because of the apathy of the past governments toward the health sector, which is evident from the fact that the previous governments had failed to develop a “National Health Policy” due to which the country miserably failed to meet the health-related targets, the minister said.

He said, all out efforts would be made to bring about a change in the health sector since PTI had started giving due preference to health and working for formulation of a national health policy to deal with health-related challenges.

He further informed that basic health centers would also be upgraded to provide relief to the people. Efforts would be made to address the issues of the young doctors, he added. The government was going to establish four new hospitals for facilitating the masses, he said adding, the government hospitals had been facing shortage of staff since long time and we were advertising new jobs for filling vacant seats. He said nursing school, college and university would also be established soon as there was shortage of nurses in the country and the government was focusing on this.

Aamer Kiani said that health was the topmost priority of the government from day one and major developments in this vital area would become evident in near future. He said the people would see improvement in all sectors and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government would put the country on the path of development and prosperity.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2018.