Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Caretaker Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan on Wednesday constituted a committee to suggest mid-term as well as long-term improvement in Sehat Card Plus.
A meeting in this regard was held here on Wednesday with chief minister in the chair which discussed in depth various matters related to the health card.
Advisor to Chief Minister on Health Dr Abid Jamil, Secretary Finance Ayaz Khan, Special Secretary Health Ubaidullah Kaka Khel, Project Director Dr Riaz Tanoli and other relevant officials attended the meeting.
While briefing the forum about Sehat Card Plus, it was revealed that under the scheme, free treatment facilities are being provided to 9.7 million households of the province at a cost of Rs28 billion per annum.
The participants were further informed that a total of 1,139 health care facilities including public and private hospitals have been empaneled in order to provide quality healthcare services to the general public.
The forum thoroughly discussed the various aspects of the sehat card scheme with a view to further streamline the operational matters and decided to constitute a high level committee comprising experts from the health sector which will submit short and mid-term proposals for the purpose.
The said committee will come up with short term proposals falling within the mandate of the caretaker provincial government, however, long term initiatives to this effect would be proposed for upcoming provincial government aimed at further improving the facility to bring it at par with the modern-day needs.
Moreover, the committee will also suggest proposals regarding improvement of services delivery system in the health facilities of rural and far-flung areas of the province including the newly merged districts.
Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan has termed Sehat Card Plus scheme as an important step for public welfare and said that the scheme could be further improved by removing the deficiencies from its process detected in the past few years and taking into account the public feedback.
“We have to ensure that the people are getting the maximum benefits from the scheme and for it further improvements are necessary,” he remarked.
Azam Khan also directed the officials to submit him a report with regard to utilization of funds allocated for the maintenance of various hospitals of the province.
It may be mentioned here that government has also released funds for the payment of salaries of hospital staff being run on public-private partnership basis in the newly merged districts.
Several hospitals had not paid the salaries of their staff due to non-release of funds by the previous provincial government.
The non-release of funds had baldy hampered the services of these hospitals and local residents were complaining that instead of improvement, the new model had deteriorated the health care system in these hospitals.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2023.
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