The proposal has a number of innovative features, prominent among those being that patients, who cannot be treated at government hospitals because the appropriate equipment or expertise is not available at government hospitals, can get treated in the private sector. Collection of baseline data is already underway using the considerable databank that is held by the Benazir Income Support Programme. The initiative has support at the federal level — which for reasons beyond reason wanted it delayed but the provincial government went ahead nonetheless — and will widen the footprint of basic health provision in a province where that provision is poor or patchy, particularly outside of the principal towns. In the bigger picture it will feed into the UN Sustainable Development Goals via the universal health coverage system. The new initiative will eliminate some of the corruption that plagues the Baitul Maal, where the applications for free healthcare of the deserving poor were sidelined by those who were in reality able to pay. This is not all going to happen overnight province-wide, and it is estimated that it will be five years before full coverage is achieved. We wish the best of health to this initiative.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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