Overseas Pakistani labourers to also benefit from ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme

Islamabad : Overseas Pakistani labourers will also now be able to benefit from the government’s ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme—a poverty alleviation initiative that seeks to provide financial protection to the poor against catastrophic healthcare expenditure.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Health Dr. Zafar Mirza, along with the SAPM on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfi Bukhari announced the government’s decision to extend the ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme to overseas Pakistani labourers while addressing a joint press conference here on Saturday.

“Our overseas Pakistani labourers are working day and night in foreign lands and send precious remittances to Pakistan which is main source of foreign exchange. It is time now for us to give them the healthcare protection so that their families back home can also prosper,” Dr. Zafar stated.

The provision of ‘Sehat Insaaf’ Cards to overseas Pakistani labourers will be a unique product of inter-sectoral collaboration between the Ministry of National Health Services and the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, both of which will together work to develop synergies to leap towards the next step of services delivery to the Pakistani population.

Beneficiaries under the initiative from the public sector funding will be all newly-protected overseas Pakistani labourers and their families for the first one year starting from the date of their protection; and all old protected overseas Pakistani labourers on self-finance basis.

The family of the beneficiary will include overseas Pakistani labourer, his/her spouse, and his/her unmarried children as per Nadra B-form. Each family will have a financial limit of Rs720,000 per year to fulfil its need for indoor healthcare services. The ‘Sehat Sahulat’ Programme is covering 45 districts in Pakistan.