PESHAWAR: The private hospitals are the main beneficiaries of Sehat Insaf Card programme as staterun hospitals are not able to provide quick and quality services to the people.

The programme offers free diagnostic and treatment services to the deserving patients. The provincial government launched SIC in January 2017 to spend Rs5.4 billion on free treatment of 1.8 million households over a period of two years. The patients have been given option to visit private or government hospitals for free treatment.

However, the private hospitals have treated more than half of the 25,000 patients under the programme that shows lack of confidence in the state-run hospitals despite huge expenditure by the government.

The provincial government has been allocating over Rs2 billion each to Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Rs1.7 billion to Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) per year but these institutions can`t compete with private hospitals as more patients prefer private treatment.

The number of patients at LRH is 900 and 700 in Ayub Teaching Hospital while 600 patients have visited KT H and as many have gone to HMC for free treatment.

The government has signed agreements with 56 private hospitals and 23state-run institutions for free treatment of poor patients under SIC.

Sources said that the card-holders preferred North West General Hospital and Research Centre and Rehman Medical Institute for free treatment because they believed the quality of treatment there was satisfactory. The government hospitals launched the pro-gramme with many delays after the private ones.

Sources said that health department knew about the situation and therefore it included private hospitals in the programme. They said that there was misconception among the architects of the programme that it would set the stage for competition between the public and private sectors as both would try to offer quality services to attract more patients.

The programme is being run in collaboration with State Life Insurance Corporation, which pays the amount spent on treatment of beneficiaries every month. The private hospitals have set up special counters where cases are being processed promptly while the situation in government hospitals is not up to a desired level.

Till May 15, the government has spent Rs417 million on the free treatment of 25,000 patients but private hospitals have remained the destination of most of the patients.

Patients interviewed by this correspondent at one of the private hospitals said they visited government hospitals but the cumbersome process forced them to seek treatment at private outlets.

A patient, who underwent treatment for cardiac sickness at a private hospital, said that all the government hospitals had full-fledged facilities for the patients but the services were not quick owing to which they came to private institutions where they received much attention.

A senior consultant in one of the government hospitals argues that most of the doctors working in private hospitals have got training in public sector hospitals and thereis no difference in the treatment protocols but the dwindling public confidence in government hospitals is the main cause of patients` tendency to go to private hospitals.

Officials said that patients faced problems of documentation at government hospitals owing to administrative and financial issues whereas the private hospitals took them readily. `Patients are benefiting from the programme and bulk of the money goes to the private hospitals, they said.