PESHAWAR, May 27: The finance department has released the first tranche of Rs50 million for the Health Endowment Fund (HEF) out of the Rs100m allocated for the financial year 2003-04.

Talking to Dawn here on Thursday, official sources said the department had transferred Rs50 million to the account of the director-general of health services, who is also secretary of the supervisory committee formed for devising modalities of the HEF.

Following the approval of the Health Endowment Fund Act by the provincial assembly, a high-level supervisory committee was formed to deal with matters relating to the HEF and to evolve a mechanism for the disbursement of funds among the needy people.

The committee comprised Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani as the patron-in-chief, chief secretary as chairman and secretaries of the finance, Zakat, Ushr and population welfare departments, representative of the provincial assembly, Speaker and the secretary/director-general of health, as members.

According to the proposed plan, the HEF would have a principal amount of Rs500 million. It would also be offered grants from the government as well as funds generated from the auction of state property, donations and other sources.

The amount would be invested in interest-free banking products, which is estimated to generate a profit of Rs5 million per month. Though funds have been released for the HEF, these are unlikely to be utilized within the current financial year as a mechanism for their disbursement among the deserving people is yet to be worked out.

At present, various proposals for evolving a mechanism for the utilization of HEF were under the review of the supervisory committee, the sources said, adding that it had been suggested that initially needy patients would be provided financial help for diseases whose treatment was costly.

The diseases and conditions identified in this regard included angioplasty and surgical installation of pacemaker for heart patients, dialysis facility for kidney patients besides neuro-surgery, hepatitis and cancer.

Heads of Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex, Ayub Teaching Hospital, Saidu Group of hospitals, Irnum and DHQ hospital D.I. Khan, would be authorized to forward applications of the deserving patients to the supervisory committee for consideration.

After committee's approval, the health department would send the application to the head of the medical institution where the treatment of the applicant could be possible.

The department, after the final approval of the committee, would transfer the amount through a cross-cheque to the account of the respective institution. To ensure timely action on the application, it has been suggested that the committee would take action on an application within seven of its receipt.