‘Overseas Pakistanis to be invited to establish healthcare facilities in 100 districts’

ISLAMABAD: Overseas Pakistanis will soon be invited to establish ‘good-quality’ hospitals in 100 districts of the country, where people can now afford quality healthcare due to ‘Sehat Sahulat Programme’ but are forced to go to larger cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and some other major cities of the country for hospitalisation and medical treatment, officials said on Thursday.

“As most of the tertiary-care health facilities are confined to some major cities of Pakistan, the government has decided to invite overseas Pakistanis to invest in the healthcare sector and establish good-quality hospitals in 100 remote districts, where people can now afford quality healthcare due to Sehat Sahulat Programme,” Muhammad Arshad, Chief Executive Officer of the Sehat Sahulat Programme, told a seminar organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Islamabad.

Addressing the seminar titled ‘Strengthening of Healthcare Delivery System of Pakistan’, jointly organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Islamabad, Rawalpindi Medical University (RMU), and Qmentum Consulting, Muhammad Arshad claimed that Balochistan would provide universal health coverage to all its population within a month by joining the Sehat Sahulat Programme, while negotiations with Sindh are also underway in this regard.

“The government has created an enabling environment for health services providers (HSPs) through the Sehat Sahulat Programme that has resulted in secondary and tertiary healthcare, becoming a win-win proposition for the stakeholders and is providing much-needed relief to millions of patients in need of hospitalisation across the country. A number of new hospitals are being built by the private sector to provide for the needs of the patients who can afford their treatment to a large extent in the shape of the health card,” Muhammad Arshad said, adding that this programme has resulted in increase in healthcare facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Punjab.

The government is planning to introduce an act of parliament in order to institutionalise this programme so that no future government would be able to make any changes without consent of the parliament, he informed, adding that there is a long way to go in terms of the improvement of quality in healthcare services and their standardisation for the benefit of the patients.

The seminar was chaired by Prof. Muhammad Umar, Vice Chancellor RMU, and co-chaired by Khalid Rahman, Chairman IPS, while Muhammad Arshad Muqarib, CEO, Prime Minister’s Health Programme, joined as the chief guest.

The discussion, revolving around the country’s health delivery system landscape, was addressed by Muhammad Nasrullah, advisor and programme lead IPSTECH (an IPS initiative for technology-based governance solutions), Manzoor Ahmad, eHR consultant, Dr. Asif Maqsood Butt, public health specialist, and Dr. Khizar Pervaiz, palliative care specialist.

The CEO Sehat Sahulat Programme highlighted that even though the programme is in its early phase, it has already started creating an enabling environment for both the public and private sector hospitals as new hospitals and facilities are being established, jobs being created and certain medical devices are being manufactured domestically, which has helped reduce their prices.

He gave the examples of the erstwhile FATA that now boasts some 30 percent new hospitals after the programme was universalised two years ago, 13 cardiac cath labs have been set up in KP after healthcare was universalised one year ago, and an oncology hospital has been set up in Gilgit-Baltistan region that will become operational soon. Now even angioplasty facility is available in a far-flung area like D.I. Khan, he added.

Tharparkar was the first area to be included in the universal healthcare programme in 2019, he informed, adding that since then it has been introduced in the FATA after its merger into KP, AJ&K, Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad. Sindh and Balochistan are expected to be included in the programme within a few weeks. This will make Pakistan the world’s first country to offer state-funded universal health coverage to the public, he said.

Muhammad Arshad said currently, 170 million people are benefiting from the programme at 1,082 hospitals, out of which 30 percent are public and 70 percent are private, adding that this is because the government cannot deliver universal healthcare without the support of the private sector. He conceded that improvements are still needed in developing a systematic approach that integrates institutions, leadership, health professionals, and the public at the centre of healthcare.

Regarding viability of the programme, he said the whole country could be provided healthcare by using just 23 percent of the total mainstream health budget for financial year 2022-23.