Image Credit: Courtesy: Punjab Director General Public Relations
On December 13, 2021, Prime Minister Imran Khan pre-launched the Naya Pakistan Sehat Card scheme, the annual one-million-rupee healthcare insurance coverage cowl for each household residing in Punjab. In a ceremony on the Governor home Lahore, attended by Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, Governor of Punjab Ch Mohammad Sarwar, Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid, and a few federal and provincial ministers, Prime Minister Khan known as the Sehat Card “a landmark… a defining moment towards our course to make Pakistan a welfare state.”
The Naya Pakistan Sehat Card is a ground-breaking programme, which if applied in its full type has the capability to be a life altering facility for tens of millions of people that reside underneath the official poverty line, or barely make sufficient to outlive, or those that regardless of have an everyday revenue have nice problem coping with exorbitant prices of high quality medical therapy.
The particular person behind many of the main institutional adjustments within the public healthcare system of Punjab is the lady with an exemplary work ethic: Punjab Minister for Health Dr Yasmin Rashid.
I requested Dr Rashid a couple of questions in regards to the Sehat Card:
How was the Sehat Card conceived?
Sehat Card was began as a healthcare initiative in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in October 2015, specializing in individuals who had been residing underneath the poverty line. At that point, 35-40 p.c of the inhabitants obtained the cardboard. Following its success, the Nawaz Sharif authorities within the centre replicated the programme in December 2015. In 2016, the then Punjab authorities of Shehbaz Sharif initiated the programme in a number of the districts of Punjab.
When our occasion fashioned authorities in 2018, 25 p.c of Punjab’s inhabitants residing underneath the poverty line in 13 districts had well being playing cards. Functional solely in 9 districts, the scope of the cardboard was Rs 350,000. We began giving well being playing cards in January 2019. By January 2020, 5.2 million households of Punjab had obtained the well being card value Rs 750,000.
In 2020, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa took the initiative of well being playing cards for his or her whole inhabitants; the programme was applied in December 2020. Following the success of that programme, Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan requested Punjab to copy it.
The dedication of the Government of Punjab was to make sure common healthcare insurance coverage for our whole inhabitants. Irrespective of the fabric standing of a person, the top of each household might be eligible for the cardboard.
Work began in May 2021 within the divisions of Dera Ghazi Khan and Sahiwal, with seven districts receiving the ability of common medical health insurance. By December 2021, 8.5 million households have the Sehat Card that covers all bills throughout a affected person’s therapy in a hospital. From January 1, 2022, the ability of Sehat Card for the remainder of Punjab’s inhabitants might be initiated. Thirty million households, inshaAllah, might be lined by end-March 2022.
The value of the challenge is, roughly, Rs 390 billion. The State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan (SLIC), having gained the bid, will begin offering the service from January 1.
What are the important thing elements of the Sehat Card?
Sehat Card, value a million rupees, might be given to the top of a household. The necessary half to know is that Sehat Card can solely be utilized as soon as the affected person is admitted in a hospital for therapy or surgical procedure. It will cowl many of the main healthcare problems with Punjab. A lady’s regular or cesarean part supply; dialysis for kidney sufferers; laparotomy; herniorrhaphy; therapy of Thalassemia sufferers; lung issues; renal and gastrointestinal points; neurological problems, mind or head damage; protection for most cancers surgical procedures, and partial protection for chemotherapy; accident accidents; surgical procedure of injured limbs; protection of Rs 400,000 for cardiac ailments, together with stenting and CABG.
If the complete quantity [of one million] is used throughout the therapy, and extra therapy is required, backup assist of extra Rs 300,000 is an choice. All medical investigations associated to a affected person’s surgical procedures and important medicines are lined by the cardboard.
Sehat Card covers the journey bills of three hospital visits. God forbid, if a affected person doesn’t survive, and the household can’t afford the burial bills, the quantity of Rs 10,000 is allotted for that objective.
Sehat Card might be useful, staggered, in all of Punjab beginning 1 January 2022 and proceed till 31 March 2022. Starting with the Lahore division, it can later be applied in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, and different divisions.
Undoubtedly, Sehat Card is a vital facility. There is 97 p.c satisfaction fee within the stories that we now have obtained from the individuals who have used it. So far, greater than 600,000 folks have benefited from the Sehat Card.
In view of the struggling financial system of Pakistan, how is the Punjab authorities funding the Sehat Card programme?
Sehat Card is supported by Prime Minister Khan and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar. Our whole cupboard and authorities equipment helps it for being a revolutionary step taken in the proper route. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the losses have been colossal, leading to inflation and joblessness. It was, due to this fact, extraordinarily necessary that the federal government supplied a social assist system. Our authorities is in a cushty place to assist the Sehat Card. The viability of the programme was analyzed in full, for a number of months, by the finance division, which supplied the reassurance of {our capability} to have the requisite funds unfold over three years.
Another good factor is SLIC is a authorities owned enterprise. What is left from the funds allotted for sufferers might be returned to the federal government treasury. Money being safe with SLIC can be assured. We have been given the dedication that SLIC might be sharing their revenue with the federal government. Government and SLIC will work in a really shut and safe collaboration to take care of a wholesome steadiness—return of the unused funds and reassurance of correct therapy given to all sufferers.
InshaAllah, if all goes properly issues will transfer ahead as deliberate. The finest method to enhance the variety of beds in hospitals is by involving the personal sector and with out investing any extra in brick and mortar. As the inhabitants of Pakistan grows, an increasing number of hospitals are required, however as an alternative of spending cash on constructing new hospitals and using extra folks, it was thought-about extra possible to put money into insurance coverage and empanelling personal hospitals that might, in flip, allocate their beds for public healthcare sufferers. We pay SLIC, SLIC pays the hospitals, and hospitals take care of the sufferers. This is one of the best ways to outsource. You put money into insurance coverage, and the personal sector turns into to speculate.
So way over 300 hospitals have been empanelled, and the quantity is continually growing—60 empanelled hospitals are working in Lahore. Some personal medical school hospitals that was once principally vacant now have sufferers who’re paying via their Sehat Card. The Punjab Institute of Cardiology, together with some personal hospitals which can be empanelled, is treating cardiac sufferers. Private hospitals are actually sharing the burden of public healthcare by treating sufferers that till now might solely afford authorities sector hospitals.
It is a win-win scenario. Utilizing our improvement fund, we are actually capable of present extra companies; 30,000 beds have been added by our uninterrupted empanelling of hospitals. We are planning to empanel all our public sector hospitals. With a extra strong involvement of the personal sector, the system will additional enhance.
Sehat Card has already produced very optimistic leads to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was not a one-day course of; all the pieces has been applied in phases. From 30 p.c, it moved to about 45 p.c of the inhabitants. Now step by step we’re having the complete inhabitants insured, and the outcomes that we now have had from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are fairly encouraging.
How would you outline the scope of public healthcare amenities in Punjab in 2021 compared to 2018?
From 2018 to 2021, there was a marked enchancment. If that wasn’t the case, it could have been extraordinarily troublesome for us to deal with the pandemic. Alhamdullilah, Pakistan, and notably Punjab, has handled the pandemic fairly efficiently. Diagnosis, therapy, vaccination. In the primary 100 days we did a niche evaluation specializing in the primary components: growing the bodily capability and human useful resource. Hospitals had been working at fifty p.c capability. Secondly, the whole variety of beds accessible in Punjab within the public sector hospitals was about 55,000, clearly not sufficient for Punjab’s burgeoning inhabitants.
The Punjab well being division has recruited greater than 48,000 folks in two and a half years—medical doctors, nurses, paramedical workers, technologists, pharmacists, and for the primary time, male nurses. An enormous asset, notably throughout the pandemic.
Punjab’s maternal and toddler mortality ratio was fairly dismal; one in every of our Sustainable Development Goals is to scale back that by half by 2030. Seven new hospitals are being constructed, 4 of which might be prepared by 2022. A 600-bed mother-and-child hospital in Lahore, 250-bed mother-and-child hospital in Mianwali, and 500-bed mother-and-child hospital in Multan. Mother-and-child hospitals are additionally being in-built Attock, Layya, Rajanpur, and Bahawalnagar.
One of the main components that we now have labored on—and I feel the pandemic put us on a quick observe—is diagnostics. In my major healthcare division, we had just one BSL 3 lab, able to performing about 500 assessments per day. Today, we now have 23 labs, useful in all of Punjab in a single and a half 12 months, and ready to carry out 25,000-30,000 assessments per day. Our testing functionality is without doubt one of the main components that has helped us to manage the pandemic.
A cardiology hospital is being constructed in Dera Ghazi Khan.
If I examine the human useful resource to 2018 numbers, vacancies are all the way down to twenty p.c from fifty p.c. Now we’re ready to make use of 15,000 extra healthcare personnel.
Overall, our preventive programmes are fairly profitable. With our polio prevention programme, there hasn’t been any optimistic polio case in 2021, a plus level for Punjab. In our prolonged immunization programmes, greater than 91 p.c of the inhabitants have been immunized. In our measles and rubella marketing campaign, we now have vaccinated 48 million kids.
Regarding the COVID-19 vaccination, greater than 50 p.c of Punjab’s 110 million inhabitants has been vaccinated. The first vaccine has been given to greater than fifty million folks. Second dose has been accomplished for thirty million folks. These large numbers are a testomony to the profitable working of the Punjab well being division.
We are additionally engaged on a really large-scale programme for varsity well being diet. We have, to this point, screened greater than ten million kids. Currently, we even have a programme for thalassemia, one of many largest province-based programmes on the planet. In the final three years, we now have screened greater than 290,000 folks.
I consider we’re on the street to progress, and that our focus is obvious and in the proper route. Our well being sector technique guides us on a regular basis whereas we stay targeted on the SDGs. Hopefully, within the subsequent one and a half years, a extra noticeable enchancment might be seen within the well being standing of the folks of Punjab, and all of Pakistan.