Before you start

Private health insurance with medical evacuation cover valid in an area under an all-travel advisory
Passport and visa, or accreditation documents, for hospital registration
Vaccination records, including for school entry
A generic-name list of any regular medication

Step-by-step

1
Buy insurance before arrival and check the geography, not just the limit
Expatriate policies underwrite at purchase, so a condition declared later becomes an exclusion. The Peshawar-specific check is whether the policy — and specifically its evacuation cover — remains valid in an area your government advises against all travel to. Many do not. This is the question to put to the underwriter in writing.
OnlineWho: YouBefore arrival
2
Register at a hospital close to where you live, then at a second one
Lady Reading Hospital in the old city, Khyber Teaching Hospital near University Town and Hayatabad Medical Complex out west are the three large tertiary centres, each with a private wing and each anchoring a different part of the city. Register before you need to, and know which is fifteen minutes from your address — proximity beats reputation in an emergency.
In personWho: YouMonth 1
3
Programme Rescue 1122, Edhi 115 and Chhipa 1020
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police publish 1122 for the rescue service, 16 for the fire brigade, 115 for Edhi's charitable ambulances and 1020 for Chhipa's. Which one reaches you fastest is not predictable, so hold all of them.
In personWho: You
4
Understand what Sehat Card Plus is doing around you
The KP scheme covers more than 10.6 million families — effectively the whole province — for free inpatient treatment up to PKR 1 million per family per year at a panel of public and private hospitals, with beneficiaries identified from NADRA data. It is why private hospitals here compete against a free alternative and why the public wards are as busy as they are. You are outside it, but it shapes waiting times and pricing everywhere you go.
OnlineWho: You
5
Bring a generic-name prescription list and map it in month one
Pakistani pharmacies are well stocked and cheap, but brand names differ from European and North American ones and some formulations are simply not imported. A list written by generic name and dose lets a local doctor reconcile your medication in a single appointment rather than during a shortage.
In personWho: You
6
Take water, air and heat seriously as health inputs
Filtered or bottled drinking water is standard in every Peshawar household including Pakistani ones. June heat routinely passes 40°C with dust, and winter brings inversion haze that is milder than Lahore's but real. A bedroom air purifier and a genuine heat plan are proportionate here; Lahore's wholesale seasonal shutdown is not.
In personWho: You

Documents you’ll need

Insurance policy and card, with evacuation cover and geographic scope confirmed in writing
Passport and visa, or accreditation documents
Vaccination records
Generic-name prescription list for any ongoing medication
Employer group scheme details, if applicable

Things most newcomers don’t know

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa runs the only genuinely universal public health cover in Pakistan, and Punjab's is not the same thing.

Sehat Card Plus KP is a provincial micro-health-insurance scheme covering more than 10.6 million families — the whole province — for free inpatient care up to PKR 1 million per family per year, at a panel of public and private hospitals across Pakistan, with beneficiary data drawn from NADRA. Punjab's programme, by contrast, covers the entire population of only a few divisions and elsewhere reaches the poor, people with disabilities and the transgender community. Anyone writing 'Pakistan has a health card' is flattening a real provincial difference. Foreign nationals are outside both, because both key off NADRA family records.

Source: Sehat Card Plus KP

Evacuation cover is worth more here than in any other Pakistani city in this app, for two separate reasons.

The first is clinical: Peshawar's public teaching hospitals are strong for a city its size but the tertiary ceiling is well below Karachi's Aga Khan, so for a set of complex diagnoses the realistic plan involves leaving. The second is contractual: an area under an all-travel advisory is exactly where standard evacuation benefits are excluded or require prior authorisation. Check the limit, check whether a companion is covered, and check the geographic wording — the last of those is the one that fails.

Source: community-reported

The emergency numbers here are not identical to Punjab's, and 1122 does not mean the same organisation.

Punjab's Rescue 1122 is a statutory province-wide service established in 2006 with a published sub-eight-minute average response. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa operates a rescue service on the same number, and it works, but it is a different organisation with a different history and different coverage — assuming the Punjab standard is the kind of generalisation that fails at the moment it matters. KP Police also publish 16 for fire, 115 for Edhi and 1020 for Chhipa. Programme all of them.

Source: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police

The teaching hospitals carry a cross-border and cross-provincial load that a city of two million would not generate.

Lady Reading, Khyber Teaching and Hayatabad Medical Complex serve as the tertiary referral centres for the whole of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and for a substantial patient flow from beyond it, on top of the extra inpatient volume Sehat Card Plus pushes through them. The practical effect for a private patient is that specialist expertise is deeper than you would expect and waiting is longer than you would expect, simultaneously. Booking ahead matters more here than in Islamabad.

Source: community-reported

Common mistakes to avoid

Buying a policy without confirming in writing that it is valid in an all-travel-advised-against area.
Assuming a government health card scheme covers you — none of them cover foreign nationals.
Assuming KP's rescue service is the Punjab Emergency Service because the number is the same.
Knowing only one hospital, on the wrong side of the city.
Arriving with brand-name prescriptions and no generic equivalents.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.