ISLAMABAD:
Federal Minister for National Health Syed Mustafa Kamal has announced the resumption of the Sehat Sahulat Health Facilitation Program after years of inactivity in the federal capital to provide quality care and free treatment to the people.
The Sehat Sahulat program has been launched in 42 hospitals in the twin cities, where deserving patients will be given free treatment. The program has been revived initially for two years and in the third year efforts will be made to provide OPD services free of cost. He also met patients during his visit to Akbar Niazi Teaching Hospital.
Mustafa Kamal explained that real-time data on patients’ treatment and expenses were being collected to ensure that the Sehat Sahulat Program was implemented equitably. He said if any hospital is found to be violating the rules and regulations laid down in the program or complicit in corruption, it will be immediately removed from the list.
He said that the population of the federation has crossed 3.5 million, while a large number of patients are coming to Islamabad hospitals from Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Rawalpindi and other neighboring areas for treatment. He noted that the influx of patients from various cities was overwhelming the services available in both public and private hospitals.
He further said that according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, 13 million people in Pakistan now live below the poverty line, while in the last five months alone, Rs 2,000 crore has been spent on treating patients.
He also added that the total healthcare budget of the federation and provinces is Rs 1,156 crore, but despite this, the patient satisfaction rate has remained below 10 per cent. He said that for these reasons and more, it had become necessary to lead an intervention in the health sector.
He added that a comprehensive study on universal health coverage concluded that basic health facilities can be provided with a budget of Rs 210 billion, although this would require 5,000 more hospitals across the country. He said that universal health coverage is a system of the future and most countries are already following this model.
During his announcement, Mustafa Kamal thanked Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif and said he accepted the government’s proposal in the public interest, thereby reviving the Sehat Sahulat Program after many years. He expressed his determination by pledging that the government will continue to take all possible measures to achieve reforms, transparency and provision of quality medical facilities to the public.
