Daily Times

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection, Dr Sania Nishtar chaired the meeting of project steering committee of Ehsaas Tahafuz held here on Thursday to deliberate on the national scale-up of the programme.

The meeting discussed and approved the expansion of Tahafuz to 14 public sector hospitals across all federating units, treatment packages to be covered by service provider hospitals and grievance redressal and patient service mechanism. The committee also reviewed and approved the terms of reference of the Tahafuz expert committee.

Speaking during the meeting, Dr. Sania Nishtar said, “In interest of integrity and quality service, the grievance redressal mechanism for patients and donor centreed donation systems are being institutionalised under Ehsaas Tahafuz.”

Ehsaas Tahafuz aims at protecting the vulnerable populations from catastrophic health expenditures and will be upscaled later this year.

Ehsaas Tahafuz is being implemented in coordination with Sehat Sahulat programme of the government to identify deserving patients facing catastrophic health expenditures, who are covered neither through Sehat Sahulat Card nor are hospitalised in a medical care facility not registered with Sehat Sahulat programme.

The Tahafuz Steering Committee has been tasked to provide managerial and strategic oversight to Ehsaas Tahafuz. Along with committee members and Tahafuz team, Secretary Muhammad Ali Shahzada and Senior Joint Secretary of the Division, Niaz Muhammad Khan also joined the meeting held at the Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division (PASSD).