PESHAWAR: The entire Takhtbhai population and the people of Shergarh area of District Mardan can’t avail themselves of the Sehat Sahulat Card initiative as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has yet to empanel the Tehsil Headquartes (THQ) Hospital Takhtbhai for the Sehat Card and free healthcare.
The government had restored the provision of healthcare under the Sehat Sahulat Card programme to those holding computerised national identity cards but population of the Tehsil Takhtbhai had yet to be covered by the scheme.
It is pertinent to mention here that THQ Hospital Takhtbhai, known as ‘Ganjai hospital’ is the single hospital with the status of tehsil heaquarter hospital in the entire district.
According to statistics available on the health card website, presently, there are only two government hospitals in the district on the panel of the health department to cater for patients under the insurance programm.
Of these hospital two hospitals Mardan Medical Complex, District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospita
l Mardan and two other private hospitals.
Officials of the District Health Office (DHO) Mardan told this scribe on the condition of anonymity that the government has completed evaluation for the provision of free care at THQ Hospital Takhtbhai.
He complained that the officials of the DHO took up the issue with the KP health department to empanel the only THQ hospital on the health card scheme, but to no avail.
Deprived from the health insurance and other basic facilites, the THQ Takhtbhai is located at the home town of PTI senior leader and MNA Ali Mohammad Khan and MPA Iftikhar Mashwani.
The people demanded from the two lawmakers to intervene and empanel the hospital on Sehat Sahulat Card programme.
Moreover, the hospital also lack sterilization autoclaves machines and hygiene kits facilities compromising the health and safety of doctors and patients alike.
On the one hand there is no operation facility to perform C-section procedures on health card on the other hand lack of sterilization autoclaves ma
chine compromising the health of expected mothers who have to visit far off areas to aquire the facilites of C-section procedures.