Health coverage: WHO hails govt’s health insurance scheme

Statement issued by PM office says WHO will send technical mission to Pakistan to study the country’s initiative.

ISLAMABAD: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday hailed and pledged its support for the country’s first National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). According to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office, the WHO’s Country Representative to Pakistan, Dr Nima Saeed Abid, has offered technical support to the NHIS in Pakistan. The statement said the WHO would send a high-level technical mission to Pakistan in the last week of June to study the country’s health insurance initiative in detail. It will also provide necessary methodological and technical support to the ministry of national health services, regulations and coordination for the smooth rolling out of the scheme across the country including Fata, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Gilgit-Baltistan. The federal government will provide tertiary health insurance cover to the poorest across the country, and eventually cover more than 100 million people at the district level public and private empanelled hospitals in a phased manner.