Back in December of last year, Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif launched the PM’s National Health Programme (NHP), designed to provide free healthcare to the underprivileged of Pakistan at both public and private hospitals. As per the NHP, families that earn less than Rs 200 per day will be provided with health insurance cards that will enable them to get free treatment from designated hospitals. The cards will cover treatments costing up to Rs 50,000 for common illnesses like the flu, fever or hepatitis, and set aside Rs 300,000 (with room to be extended to Rs 600,000) for more serious ailments and treatments like heart problems, dialysis or cancer treatment. Furthermore, it was stressed at its launch ceremony that the NHP would be regulated to ensure that medical staff does not treat NHP cardholders with discrimination. This clarification was required because the bedside manner of Pakistani medical professionals is notoriously poor and fears that without such measures poor patients opting for government issued insurance would be mistreated are not without merit. As many hospitals, both public and private, lack essential facilities to effectively treat many serious illnesses covered under the NHP, they have been encouraged to apply for low-interest loans so they can satisfy the basic requirements for being part of the NHP. The realisation of the NHP has been hailed as a much needed and highly welcome initiative by the government. However, though it is intended to eventually be a nationwide project, currently it is in its pilot stage and, so far, only 23 districts across Pakistan will be covered. Another inhibiting factor has been the opting out of Sindh and Khyber Pakthunkhwa from the NHP, leaving only Punjab, Balochistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) as the beneficiary regions. Accordingly, after the inauguration in Islamabad, the PM has launched the NHP in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) now. Addressing the ceremony, the PM said the scheme was a dream come true, as the provision of quality healthcare to those who cannot afford it was part of his party’s manifesto and dubbed serving the masses a “sacred duty”. He declared that all those who received their health cards would be able to benefit from the services immediately. The NHP will be initially available in two districts of AJK: Muzaffarabad and Kotli. However, the PM added that soon the entire AJK would be covered by NHP. In any case, within just Muzaffarabad and Kotli 82,362 and 79,004 households respectively are set to be beneficiaries of the scheme — this translates to more than one million individuals and for a pilot project this is pretty impressive coverage. The opting out of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, however, remains a point of worry, as making this initiative a victim of political parties’ rivalries will only hurt the poor people of Pakistan. Ostensibly, this is because the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government claims it is set to launch its own health insurance scheme so it does not need another programme. However, this excuse does not carry much weight since both programmes are not mutually exclusive. If the provinces get further assistance from the federal government in addition to their own healthcare plans, the only upshot is increased health coverage and benefit to the people. In no world is that an outcome to be scorned at. It is commendable that the federal government has belatedly realised the importance of welfare projects and has taken a break from building roads and bridges to focus on healthcare. However, it must be noted that for a considerable while, the NHP will only benefit small pockets across the country while the rest of the people continue to suffer from inadequate healthcare delivery. A lot more needs to be done to improve conditions and infrastructure of healthcare and hospitals nationwide, so that the NHP can feed off that. Government hospitals especially lie in dilapidated states with shoddy infrastructure and facilities. Staff is ill-trained, over worked and paid ridiculously low wages, and life-saving machines and modern facilities are a pipedream. The NHP can only work if the people who use the cards have the right kind of healthcare to look forward to. *