Healthcare havoc : Sehat Card scams trapping unwary patients

Public hospital employees mislead beneficiaries into seeking costly treatment at private facilities

LAHORE:

Even as the government glorifies its attempts to facilitate the treatment of low-income citizens through initiatives like the Sehat Insaf Card, the pervasiveness of corruption in the logistics of the program has disturbed both patients and the national treasury.

Despite the Health Department Punjab allocating a billion rupee budget for the Sehat Insaf Card initiative which set out to offer free of cost treatments to low-income citizens for ailments ranging from cardiac disease to liver and kidney failure, various gynaecological conditions and even cancer, the high prevalence of scams in government hospitals has diminished the utility of the scheme for patients, who are tricked into receiving costly treatments from private hospitals, which prematurely depletes the treatment coverage offered by their cards.

Tabassum Bibi, a gastroenterology patient from Okara, who was seeking treatment at the Mayo Hospital, revealed that the doctors casually asked her to continue her treatment at a private facility using the Sehat Card. “The private facility took my signatures and performed the operation using the funds available in my Health Card,” shared a distraught Tabassum.

However, Tabassum was not the only patient to get scammed by public hospital employees, as Saba Ali, a local patient at the Services Hospital and Ahmed Ali, a patient from Kasur admitted to the General Hospital, were also unexpectedly asked by their surgeons to have their critical surgeries performed at a private hospital under the Sehat Insaf Card’s coverage.

The patients’ accusations were bolstered by a healthcare provider working in a government hospital, who revealed to The Express Tribune, on the condition of anonymity, that the management of a top private hospital bribed them into sending patients with a Sehat Insaf Card over. “They pay us anything between Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 for the task. Since our salaries are unreasonably low, we have no choice but to take the deal,” he informed.

According to official documents, out of 525 private hospitals across Punjab, 80 percent have been registered under the health card scheme and billions of rupees are being transferred from the national treasury to the hospital owners’ accounts under the guise of treatment.

“Every month almost 1,500 patients seek treatment at government hospitals with their Health Card but unfortunately more than 300 are directed to private hospitals in exchange for a commission,” disclosed the medical superintendent at a renowned government hospital in Lahore.

Aware of the connivance of the government hospital staff, experts suggest limiting the Sehat Insaf Cards coverage to verified low-income groups only to abate the negative repercussions of the scam on the provincial treasury.

“Talks are underway to limit the welfare health coverage to deserving groups only,” asserted Dr Ali Razzaq, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Punjab Health Initiative Management Company.

Speaking to The Express Tribune on the matter, Dr Javed Akram, the provincial caretaker Health Minister accepted the fact that public hospitals were scamming patients by referring them to costly private facilities. “In light of the workings of the scamming mafia in hospitals, we have decided to decrease the annual coverage premium, which will now be limited to Rs 4,300. Those who can afford to pay for treatment from their pockets will no longer be covered by the Sehat Insaf Card,” announced Dr Akram.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2023.