KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to introduce a health insurance scheme in the province in the coming weeks in which it would serve poor women from across the province in the first phase of the plan, according to health minister, Dr Sikandar Mandhro.

Speaking to the media while visiting various hospitals in the city, Dr Mandhro said the Sindh government already has a bill vis-a-vis health insurance in the provincial legislature and now the time has came to implement it.

`The scheme is to benefit the poor and we`ll start from women in Sindh who need such facility the most,` said the minister.

Of ficials said such a scheme was first envisaged in 2009 when the Sindh government had decided to provide a free health insurance facility to 6.5 million deserving people of different districts that would cost the government Rs703.814 million.

According to that plan, Rs138 million were to be spent on the project initially and even the government discussed it several times with insurance companies.

Under that scheme, a man could avail treatment facility himself up to Rs25,000 in a year while a woman could also receive Rs25,000 in the case of delivery.

In the first phase, 3.2 million of the poorest people of 400,000 families in 11 districts were to be given insurance cards after registration.

However, the scheme remained short of implementation because of several political issues that came in between, particularly the continued rifts between the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The law was passed in the assembly but remained dormant for several months.

This minister, however, said the selection of women, who would be registered in the scheme, would be made with the help of the Benazir Income Support Programme.

Recently, Sindh CM Syed Murad Ali Shah agreed to launch the Prime Minister`s National Health Programme (PMNHP) in six districts of the province for which his government is meant to contribute Rs2 billion.

It is a similar scheme for which four districts have been selected so far. However, the chief minister wants it to be expanded to two more districts.

According to the scheme, provincial government would provide premium for secondary care while the federal government would finance premiums for priority disease or tertiary care.

The services would be provided by public and private empanelled hospitals and they would be executed by insurance companies.

`It is a cashless scheme for families living below $2 per day (below the poverty line) through the insurance provided by the government.

Under the programme there would be two hospital benefit packages. The premium covered by provincial government would be of Rs50,000 per family that could be increased to Rs100,000 on caseto-case basis, for all indoor patient services.

There would be a limit of Rs250,000 per family per year but it could be enhanced to Rs500,000 if exhausted.