Sehat Tahafuz Programme ceases operations

Healthcare project covered medical expenses of poor worth Rs1m

ISLAMABAD:

The Sehat Tahafuz Programme (STP), which provided medical expense coverage of up to Rs1 million for the poor, has ceased operations.

The poverty alleviation and social safety ministry has issued a notification to the STP director about the suspension of the medical project.

“[The] Sehat Tahafuz Programme is a PSDP [Public Sector Development Programme] programme, which was being executed in partnership with the empaneled public sector hospitals in order to deliver health services to the poorest of the poor patients across Pakistan. It is with regret informed that as per the direction of the joint secretary (P&D), Ministry of Poverty Alleviation & Social Safety, the operations of Sehat Tahafuz Programme have been suspended immediately w.e.f 15th March, 2024,” it read.

It continued that it was therefore requested to stop generating requests for treatment of patients under the STP immediately from March 15.

The director of the programme was further asked to immediately dispatch pending invoices to the Project Management Unit (Primary & Secondary Health Department), STP, and poverty alleviation ministry on account of patients already treated under the scheme along with the supporting documents “duly completed in all aspects.”

The reason cited for this was that they could be cleared in the current fiscal year.

“No claim for clearance of pending liabilities shall be entertained in the next financial year i.e FY 2024-25, as no PSDP allocation of funds shall be made to [the] STP for the FY 2024-25,” the notification read.

The STP was a social protection programme of the poverty alleviation and social safety ministry. It protected the poor from catastrophic healthcare expenditure.

In March, 2022, the federal cabinet approved Ehsaas Tahafuz, a fund-based health financing system.

Ehsaas Tahafuz complemented the insurance-based Sehat Sahulat Programme to ensure universal health coverage.

The programme provided health facility to patients who are unable to receive treatment from the Sehat Sahulat scheme because of various circumstances.

In April 2022, former special assistant to the PM Dr Sania Nishtar officially opened the portal of Ehsaas Tahafuz for empanelment of public hospitals under the safety net programme.

Citizens of the federally administered Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s merged districts and Islamabad were the beneficiaries of the STP.

For the past several months, the funds of the Prime Minister's Sehat Sahulat Programme have also been stopped. There are neither medicines, nor surgical operation facilities available at federal hospitals.

(With input from our News Desk in Karachi)