Health insurance programme extended across province

Over Rs7 billion allocated for development, ongoing expenses of major medical centres


Umer Farooq June 19, 2019
PHOTO: AFP

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) on Tuesday becomes the first province in the country to offer health insurance to all of its permanent residents, even if the development funds allocated for the sector are lower for the fiscal year 2019-20 than the original estimates for 2018-19.

The Sehat Insaf Card, which was launched in four districts in 2016, has now been extended to all residents of the province. The project had been launched by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in K-P to reduce the out-of-pocket health expenditures and to ultimately improve the quality of healthcare services provided to the public in government-run hospitals.

The social health protection scheme commonly known as Sehat Insaf Card was launched with financial assistance from the German government through the KfW bank which provided Rs1.23 billion. However, Rs1.39 billion were spent on the first phase of the programme, which was initially launched in four districts including Mardan, Chitral, Malakand and Kohat.

The micro health insurance scheme is being administered by State Life Insurance Corporation and it offers hospitalisation coverage of around Rs0.54 million annually per 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.

In the budget for the fiscal year 2019-20, the government now wants to expand the programme across the province, including the newly-merged tribal areas.

Having once again termed health a priority area for the government by K-P Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra, the provincial government said that it had set aside a total of Rs96.998 billion for the sector across the settled and the erstwhile federally administered tribal areas (Fata).

Of this, the government has reserved Rs13.607 billion for development, including Rs11.849 billion for development in the settled districts Rs1.758 billion, have been reserved for 11 projects in the newly-merged tribal districts.

The allocation for the settled districts is down from the Rs11.863 billion originally earmarked by the provincial government in the last fiscal year. However, that figure was revised downwards to Rs9.887 billion during the year. In the next fiscal year, the government intends to allocate Rs10.003 billion for development in the sector while Rs1.846 billion will be provided by foreign entities for specific health-related projects.

Around Rs76.473 billion will be used for non-development expenditure in the settled areas, including Rs30.343 billion to pay salaries of health staff, Rs24.63 billion for non-salary expenditures and Rs36.01 million for various posts.

In the newly-merged districts, Rs6.917 billion has been reserved for non-development expenses.

More than Rs7 billion have been allocated for the development and ongoing expenses, including the improvement of the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology, Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Institute of Kidney Diseases, Saidu Hospital, Fountain House Peshawar and other facilities.

Moreover, Rs4.4billion will be spent on health and safety programmes. The healthcare package is for all basic health units, rural health centres and secondary healthcare facilities.

The provincial government claimed to have doubled the budget for medicine in primary and secondary facilities from Rs500 million to a billion rupees. Moreover, Rs820 million have been reserved for the treatment of poor cancer patients while Rs4.4 billion have been reserved for various health delivery and immunization programmes.

A programme for tertiary, secondary and primary health facilities and medical colleges including both ongoing and new projects has been included in the ADP.

Moreover, the government intends to expand Rescue 1122 services in four new districts, including Lakki Marwat, Malakand, Shangla and Lower Kohistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2019.

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