Health cover: Sindh okays new reimbursement policy

Government employees from grades 1 to 22 to be covered for 34 diseases.

KARACHI: Sindh government staff from grades 1 to 22 are now eligible to be reimbursed for medical expenses for 34 chronic conditions, according to a policy approved by the chief minister on Thursday.

Sindh Finance Secretary Muhammad Siddique Memon explained that it also applied to retired employees. The main rationale behind revising the policy was to ensure reimbursement for fatal diseases that require frequent consultancy and are expensive to treat.

This news comes as a relief to Sindh Secretariat employees who protested the suspension of their health insurance scheme on December 11. Talking to The Express Tribune, the welfare association’s Dilshad Maher said they appreciated the government’s reimbursement policy, but their actual demand was to get the health insurance back on track.

According to the reimbursement policy, however, staff can get their money back for medicines and daycare through out-patients departments. It covers conditions such as: Cerebrovascular accident, migraine, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, chronic renal disease, nephrolithiasis, hepatitis B and C, cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, ischaemic heart disease, thalassemia, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, bronchial asthma, COPD, pulmonary tuberculosis, acid peptic disease, inflammatory bowel disease, degenerative disc disease, sinusitis, leucoderma, polycystic ovarian disease, chronic suppurative otitis media, valvular heart disease, Hirschsprung’s disease, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura , haemophilia, benign prostatic hyperplasia, Alzheimer’s disease, thyroid disease, dyslipidemia, systemic lupus erythematosus and systemic sclerosis endometriosis.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2010.