PESHAWAR: Health department in collaboration with German government will launch free treatment services at outpatient departments (OPDs) in four districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

`Last week, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been inked with KfW, a German bank, to begin free OPD services in Mardan, Malakand, Kohat and Chitral,` Dr Mohammad Riaz Tanoli, the chief executive officer of Social Health Protection Initiative (SHPI), said.

He said that the total cost of the two-year programme was 9.4 million euros of which 90 per cent would be given by Germany and 10 per cent by KhyberPakhtunkhwa government.

`The programme will be started in January next year in Mardan andwillbeimplemented by SHPI through State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC). It will be extended to the three other districts subsequently. If the programme remains successful, it will be enforced in the entire province,` said Dr Riaz.

He said that a similar programme was started by the provincial government in collaboration with Germany in the same districts in 2015 under which three per cent population was provided with free medical treatment.

Given the success, the programme now called Sehat Card Plus (SCP) was extended to the whole province that facilitated free treatment of about 3.6 million in-patients at a cost of more than Rs88 billion, he said.

Dr Riaz said that the initiative would benefit 100,000 families in the selected districts and selection of eligible people would be made on the basis of poverty. Hesaid that Adviser to Chief Minister on Health Ihtisham Ali, who oversaw the signing ceremony of MoU, wanted to start the programme soon as there were no free OPD services and SCP was meant for cashless medication of the admitted patients.

`In Mardan, where the programme will be piloted, 40,000 patients will be able to get free OPD services. The beneficiaries will get three free checkups per year and the cost of consultation fee, investigations and medicines will be paid from the grant provided by the government of Germany through KfW,` he said.

Dr Riaz said that selection of would-be recipients for free OPD services would be made on the basis of Benazir Income Support Programme. He added that only the people listed as the poorest would stand eligible to get free health services at OPD.

`As per initial plan, it will be started at the union council level where two general practitionerswill be hired on contract to deal with patients and one each doctor will be selected from public and private sector,` he said.

Dr Riaz said that government was spending Rs34 billion on SCP annually to provide free health services to more than 10.5 million families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including merged districts. `For this purpose, we have empanelled 118 hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 635 across the country to benefit the people of this province in any other part of the country,` he said.

He said that OPD services were required by patients, who needed medical checkups at hospitals on regular basis, whereas SCP benefitted the people requiring hospitalisation.

`There will be constant monitoring of the programme to ensure that the benefits trickle down to people just like SCP, which was started for poor people but was extended to the whole population in a phase-wise manner,` said Dr Riaz.