LAHORE: According to official data, obstetricians performed about 80% of all C-sections covered by the Sehat Card Program in private hospitals throughout Punjab, ostensibly reaping “huge financial gains” at the expense of taxpayers.
Official data about the delivery processes carried out under the Sehat Sahulat Program between January 2016 and January 2024 makes this clear.
According to the data, the private hospitals alone claimed a total of Rs16.36 billion against C-sections and standard delivery procedures.
This demonstrates that a significant portion of the funds the government paid to oppose C-section procedures went to the proprietors of private healthcare facilities.
Under the program, the State Life Insurance Corporation has been providing financial assistance for a number of medical operations.
According to the data, 668,238 C-section procedures were conducted throughout the time by public and commercial institutions affiliated with the Punjab Health Initiative Management Company (PHIMC). The biggest health plan in Punjab was being managed by the corporation, which was also in charge of the medical coverage given to the patients.
Out of all the cases, 142,619 were treated at government hospitals across the province, and 525,619 procedures were performed in private facilities.
Many unbiased medical observers have been taken aback by this significant disparity, and they are calling for an impartial investigation into the issue.
In a similar vein, Punjab’s public and private hospitals reported 210,124 regular deliveries. Of them, 142,621 normal births were registered at the province’s government hospitals.
According to a top medical educator, in order to uncover the truth, a third party should conduct a thorough investigation into the causes behind the stark discrepancy between the percentages of C-section procedures performed in public and private institutions. He claims that the reasons why so many women were allegedly “forced to undergo” the operation ought to be made public.
He states, “We, the medical community, are aware that many obstetricians engage in these kinds of practices because they get paid far more for performing a C-section than for a normal birth.”
He continues by saying that standard birth is regarded as far safer in the medical community than surgery. He claims that the gynecologists who benefited from the health plan might have abused the patients’ ignorance of medicine to their advantage in order to make large financial profits.
The official data in this regard is consistent with the opinions of medical professionals, since the payments to private hospitals for all Cesarean surgeries and normal deliveries between 2016 and January 2024 amounted to Rs16.36 billion.
A separate figure was estimated for the remaining years. Of the total, the primary claim of Rs7.19 billion was recorded in 2023, Rs8.16 billion in 2022, Rs610 million in 2021, and Rs168 million in 2020.
According to the data, public hospitals performed just 97,390 Cesarean sections in 2023, compared to 197,376 performed by private hospitals.
Private hospitals conducted 281,137 cesarean sections in 2022, compared to 31,372 in government hospitals. In 2021, the number was 28,366 in private hospitals and 87 in public sector hospitals alone. Comparably, in 2020, public hospitals conducted only six Cesarean sections, compared to 8,174 performed by private hospitals.
The information also reveals that 4,902 C-sections were performed in private institutions in 2019, 3,021 in 2018, 2,292 in 2017, and only 349 in 2016.
However, from 2016 to 2019, the total number of C-sections performed in government hospitals was just eight, indicating a clear trend toward more Cesarean sections being performed in private hospitals following the introduction of the health card program.
According to an official, the private hospitals were prohibited from performing Cesarean sections by the Punjab government, which was in charge at the time, in mid-2023. This decision was made after it was determined that a significant portion of the total sum claimed by these hospitals for the years 2022 and 2023 had reached a concerning level.
According to him, during the course of the two years, private hospitals performed an astounding 478,513 C-section procedures.
As a result, the official notes that the entire amount of claims made against all C-section surgeries and regular births performed in the previous two years had increased to over Rs15 billion, which was significantly more than the total amount of claims made by the private hospitals in the preceding six years. He claims that the authorities decided to evaluate the policy and impose a ban as a result of this incident.
The official claims that the government directed state-run hospitals to only accept delivery cases under the health card, while outlawing similar procedures at private hospitals.
But according to the official, public hospitals also ceased accepting delivery cases under the health card program when physicians said their portion of each case was insufficient and, therefore, unacceptable to them.
He continues, saying that public hospitals continued to admit expectant mothers without the health card coverage.
Ali Razaq, the CEO of PHFMC, declined to address the matter.
