State Life Insurance directs hospitals to continue treatment under the Sehat Insaf Card

The State Life Insurance has sent out a letter to more than 1,000 hospitals to resume the treatment of patients under the Sehat Insaf Card.

The development came after the reports surfaced that all public and private sector hospitals in the Rawalpindi division have refused to treat patients qualified for the Sehat Insaf Card.

Sources have revealed that the hospitals’ management was concerned about reimbursing expenses under the health card after the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government was ousted from power.

Earlier, hundreds of patients, who visited more than 25 hospitals (Public and Private) in Rawalpindi, Attock, Jhelum, and Chakwal, had been refused treatment under the Sehat card.

Being the guarantor of the health program, the State Life Insurance wrote a letter to more than 1,000-panel hospitals across the country on the 10th of April, restating that the health card scheme would continue and expenses would be reimbursed.

Hospitals have been requested to provide free treatment to the patients under the health facility, and the charges incurred will be covered under the health card.

An official working in a government hospital had earlier said on condition of anonymity that since the 1st of April, the hospitals have stopped accepting further admissions and operations on the Sehat Insaf Card.

The health official said, “The hospital management was concerned about how the money will be collected from the new governance if the PTI government is thrown out of power.”

A patient named Shamshad Hussain, who had visited the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology from Muzaffarabad, said that doctors decided to conduct bypass surgery on him last month. They also guaranteed him that all the expenditures incurred during the operation would be refunded through the Sehat Insaf Card.

“Now, doctors are rejecting to operate despite their assurance. They have asked me to go to a private hospital. When I went to a private hospital with the Sehat Card, the hospital declined to accept the card and asked for cash,” he had said.

Shamshad said he hailed from a low-income family, and if he had money, he would never have used the Sehat Insaf Card. “The government should restore this facility so that the poor can get free treatment,” he had said.

When Rawalpindi District Health Authority officials were contacted about the refusal of Sehat cards for providing free medical treatment, they said that the Sehat Insaf Card system was very complicated.

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