Punjab to spend Rs400bn on health insurance programme, says CM Buzdar

Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar has said that the Punjab Government will spend Rs400 billion on Universal Health Insurance Programme and by the end of March, every family in the province will have access to free treatment through New Pakistan National Health Card.

He said this while addressing a launching ceremony of New Pakistan National Health Card at the PM Office in Islamabad on Wednesday.

Read more: PM Imran Khan launches health card for residents of Islamabad

The facility has been introduced in the Rawalpindi Division to accommodate about three million families to avail the free treatment of one million rupees per annum through 56 hospitals on the panel.

Buzdar said that 110 million people of 36 districts of Punjab would benefit from this historic programme, adding that the provincial government had paid special attention to the improvement of the health sector as improving the quality of health care facilities was top priority of his government.

The health team had worked hard and Punjab would be developed as a model province in terms of health, he maintained.

23 new hospitals were being built and existing health facilities upgraded, he said, adding that the incumbent government had increased the budget for the health sector by 200 times as compared to allocations made by the previous governments.

He noted that eight mother and child hospitals were being set up in remote areas of the province.

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In three and a half years, 158 hospitals had been upgraded, 78 new health facilities built and the day was not far when PM Imran Khan’s vision of extending the best health facilities to the poor would be fulfilled, he added.

The whole of Pakistan, including Punjab province, would benefit from the facility of the New Pakistan National Health Card because people had the right of access to quality healthcare facilities.

This is also the manifesto of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the CM concluded.