The Ehsaas Catastrophic Health Expenditure and Ehsaas Tahaffuz policy has been approved to ensure universal health coverage for citizens, especially in times of natural calamities. These policies aimed to create a fund-based health system that will complement the insurance-based Sehat Sahulat Programme to protect people from catastrophic health expenditures.
According to Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar, there is a dire need for policies that will accompany the current health programmes to address the health sector gaps and ensure that no one will fall into poverty due to health expenditures.
Ehsaas Tahaffuz programme is a paperless, digital and technology-based programme that works electronically. Its supply-chain management, tracking and time-shaping and pre-configured rules for eligibility ascertainment help overcome abuse and mistargeting of social protection funds. Such features have made it responsive and accountable.
The programme has been introduced to provide coverage specifically against catastrophic health expenditures to vulnerable communities. The programme is based on partnerships with public hospitals that identify patients who need financial support. After identification, patients are assessed for the Tahafuz eligibility criterion. For eligible patients, hospitals will be directly reimbursed for pre-defined treatment costs.
The current government is taking effective measures to ensure efficient use of public resources to build synergies between complementary programmes.
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