ISLAMABAD: The government is all set to expand the Prime Minister’s National Health Programme (PMNHP) all over the country till 2022, to provide social health protection (health insurance) against all sorts of health epidemics to all families living below poverty line of US$ 2 per day.
PMNHP is a milestone towards social welfare reforms, which ensures that the identified under-privileged citizens across the country get access to their entitled medical health care in a swift and dignified manner without any financial obligations.
According to the documents exclusively available with Pakistan Today, under the second phase of the PMNHP, a total of 14 million families would be covered across the country, costing around Rs33.63 billion.
The programme would be expanded across the country within five years, which would be started from January 1, 2018, and would be completed by December 31, 2022.
The national health programme project is of utmost importance for the poorest of the country, which in its phase-I with a total cost of approximately Rs8 billion, is already under implementation in 36 districts nationwide.
The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation & Coordination (NHSR&C), through Project Management Unit (PMU) and respective provincial and regional governments, would execute the project across the country during the stipulated time period of five years.
The documents read that the phase-II PC-I is reflected in PSDP 2017-18 with a total cost of Rs10 billion and an allocation of Rs7 billion, which has been developed to fulfill the directives of the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif given on January 30, 2017 to initiate the social health protection initiatives in all districts for people living below the poverty line.
The incumbent Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on August 18, 2017, also emphasised to expand the programme to all across the country.
“The cost to continue supporting PMUs and its human resource for federal capital, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has been continued in the current PC-1 of the federal government,” the documents disclosed.
According to further details, below the poverty line households database of Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) has been secured by NHSR&C ministry and shared with NADRA for extraction of families. From the database, it is estimated that a total of 14 million families are present in Pakistan for enrolment in PMNHP.
The Central Management Information System (CMIS) of PMNHP has been developed by NADRA and is providing real-time information to programme management regarding enrolment, hospital admission, discharge, complaints and satisfaction surveys.
According to the documents, a new household poverty survey of BISP is also underway in all the provinces of the country and it is expected that the survey will be completed and results will be available during the financial year 2018–19.
Interventions which have been introduced in phase-II PC-I are patient access programme, family practice programme, assisted technologies, excess and over excess of loss coverage, wage loss benefit, funeral expenses, accidental insurance complaint cell in PMNHP and reproductive health.
Moreover, the documents revealed that an amount of Rs7 billion has been allocated in PSDP (2017-18) aimed at improving the health status of the population in the country by ensuring access to quality healthcare, especially enhancing coverage and access to secondary and priority treatments of the poor and vulnerable population.
Poorest families in all the districts, in a phased manner, are covered by health insurance under this scheme, reducing out-of-pocket expenditure through a reduction in episodes of catastrophic illnesses.
