PWDs included in ‘Sehat Sahulat’ programme

Islamabad: On the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan, families of tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are being given ‘Sehat Insaf’ cards and there will be 100 per cent coverage for the entire population of district Tharparkar in Sindh.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza said this while talking to media persons in a special briefing on ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme of the government. The prime minister has given special directives to include in the programme all the disabled persons who are registered for disability at NADRA, he said.

The disability includes blindness, hearing impairment, mental and physically retardation. Moreover, ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme will provide free wheel chairs and white canes to the disabled beneficiaries, he said.

Giving details, Dr. Mirza said through this social health protection initiative, health insurance is to be provided to 15 million poor families living below poverty line in Pakistan including 6,897,000 poor families of Punjab (in 36 districts), 515,000 poor families of Balochistan (in 32 districts), 3,868,316 poor families of Sindh (in 29 districts) and entire Tharparker District (300,000 families), 1,621,088 poor families of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (in 29 districts), 335,000 poor families of AJK (in 11 districts), 126,000 poor families of Gilgit-Baltistan (in 9 districts), 1,000,000 families of merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (in 11 districts) and 85,000 poor families of Islamabad (one district).

He elaborated that ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme gives coverage for indoor healthcare services only for example major treatments like heart diseases (Stents and open heart surgeries), diabetes mellitus complications, burns and accidents, dialysis, chronic infections complications, organ failure management, cancer management including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, neurosurgical procedures, all secondary medical and surgical illnesses, Maternity Package to promote mother and child health and all emergencies. It has insurance limit up to 720,000 per year, he said.

While sharing the progress of the initiative, Dr. Mirza said 3.24 million families have been enrolled so far and there are 608,233 hospital visits while 145,000 have admitted for certain treatments/medical procedures, whereas 442,005 families are newly enrolled in the program.

He informed the media persons that so far 5,212 women have availed services for normal delivery and 8,868 have undergone C section procedures while 1505 have undergone angiography and stenting, 1064 have been operated for open heart bypass, 1522 received cancer treatment and 8310 availed facility of dialysis. As many as 3016 trauma cases, 5428 cholecystectomy, 8,864 for hernioplasty, 8,373 for appendectomy, 11,104 cataract eye and 9,920 hysterectomy cases have so far received treatment, he said.

He also informed that there are 285 Empanelled hospitals all across Pakistan for providing free of cost services to beneficiaries of the program. There is provision of transportation cost of Rs1000 at the time of discharge to every beneficiary. In case, any death occurs in empanelled hospital, burial support of Rs10,000 is given per death to the attendant/family of the beneficiary, said Dr. Mirza.

He added there is another feature of Inter Provincial/Inter District Portability where free of cost services from any empanelled hospital in Pakistan can be availed. For complaint management there is availability of toll-free number 0800-09009, any beneficiary can call and lodge complaints. Any Pakistani can check his or her beneficiary status through SMS service by sending CNIC number to 8500. Dr. Zafar Mirza expressed satisfaction over the current status of the program and appreciated the efforts made by his team in providing services to the poor families in Pakistan.