The Khyber Pakthunkhwa Government has planned to include additional 800,000 deserving and poor families under social safety health program by issuing them Sehat Insaf Cards (SICs) to provide free of cost treatment to them in next five years.
An inclusive strategy has been chalked out by the KP government to extend scope of SICs to tribal districts with financial assistance of Federal Government and has planned to include additional 800,000 deserving families including disabled, widows and senior citizens in this landmark social safety health program during 2018-23 period.
According to a senior official of KP Health Department, the registered poor tribesmen of Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Kurram and Orakzai districts would be issued SICs for free of cost treatment of fatal ailments such as cancer, kidney, heart and hepatitis etc and around four million tribesmen would be facilitated from this landmark facility.
Presently, around 69pc deserving population of KP are being provided free treatment under SICs and with inclusion of seven tribal districts this coverage will likely to jump to over 80pc in next five years.
The official said each beneficiary will be provided around Rs540,000 per family in the form of SICs for doctors' fees and medicines in tribal districts. In addition to extension of Sehat Insaf Cards (SICs) to tribal districts of erstwhile Fata, the government will focus on strengthening of Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), Lady Health Workers (LHW), Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI) and others nutrition programs besides standardization and mainstreaming of DHQs & THQs hospitals and setting up of a network of BHUs during fiscal year 2018-19 with allocation of Rs11.90 billion for health sector's uplift in current fiscal year.
The official said construction of health infrastructure in all seven tribal districts was a big challenge after Fata's merger in KP and huge funds would be required for construction of hospitals, basic health units and rural health centres there. Special focus would be made on prevention of chronic diseases, strengthening of primary and secondary healthcare system and strengthening of districts hospitals in the province.
Special focus would be made on development of districts headquarters hospitals and human resource development, construction of basic health units and bolstering of vaccination programs in the province. A human resource cell is being established at health department wherein the province wise available data, expertise and its multiple implementations would be available which would help overcome the human resource shortfall in the department.
Under 100-day plan of the PTI government, a mega project for improvement of health service delivery in over 800 BHUs is in the offing especially designed to utilize services of an increased strength of doctors, paramedics and improved health facilities.
Trauma centre in DHQ hospital in Lakki Marwat, cardiac cauterization of laboratory at three divisional headquarters hospitals, Burn centres at three divisional headquarters hospitals, Paeds hospital in Swat, rehabilitation and construction of 200BHUs would be established besides purchase of incinerators for deficient health facilities in the province.
To achieve these objectives, the KP government has allocated Rs78.65 billion for health sector in fiscal year 2018-19 budget against Rs69 billion last year, registering an increase of 21pc. The budget of health sector for FY 2018-19 has remained about 13pc of total KP budget as over two percent of total GDP of the province are being spent on health sector better than other provinces. A total of Rs65 billion were spent out of Rs69b development budget of last fiscal year in the province.
The KP government had increased budget of health sector from Rs30.3billion in 2012-13 to record Rs78.65 billion in 2018-19 besides increased number of beds in public sector hospitals from 12,114 in 2012-13 to 18,185 in 2016-17. The issue of shortage of doctors has been addressed by the PTI govt as the strength of doctors, which was only 4000 in 2013, had been increased to record 9000 in 2018, making positive impact in health delivery system besides restored confidence of masses.
The strength of EPI vaccinators which was only 1350 few years ago were increased to 3300 today and resultantly, polio cases were significantly decreased owing to regular holdings of immunizations in KP. A procurement cell is created in health department to monitor and ensure transparency in utilization of procurement funds, adding Rs3 billion were spent on purchase of different equipments for government hospitals.