The Health Ministry has sought the approval of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to reimburse expenses incurred on the OPD treatment of low-scale federal government employees.
Official sources in the Health Ministry told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the ministry has sent a summary to the prime minister seeking permission to reimburse expenses incurred on the life saving OPD treatment given to the non-gazetted federal government employees, besides payment of the allowed medical allowance.
The sources said that the ministry has taken this step after receiving a number of requests from the non-gazetted federal government employees asking for reimbursement of OPD treatment charges in cases of chronic illnesses like hepatitis, cancer, renal diseases, etc.
The employees said that the treatment is too costly as sometimes it costs over Rs 0.2 million, which they cannot afford.
On the other hand, Rs 425 is being paid to them as monthly medical allowance.
The Health Ministry is of the view that in such cases this medical allowance is totally insufficient to meet medicine expenses and recommended the case to the higher authorities for consideration on humanitarian grounds.
The federal government servants, both serving as well as retired and their families, were entitled free medical facilities by the government under Federal Service Medical Attendance Rule 1990.
Under the rule, the federal government was reimbursing any amount paid by the government servant for his and his family members medical treatment.
Later, the Finance Division had amended the rule, whereby all the retired federal government employees and serving gazetted employees are entitled for the same.
But, by giving medical allowance of Rs 425 to the non-gazetted employees, they were deprived of reimbursement of the expenses incurred on their OPD treatment for which the approval of the prime minister has been sought.