PESHAWAR, Dec 1: Needy patients are yet to receive financial assistance for treatment from the Health Endowment Fund that was set up by the NWFP government last year to help poor people suffering from certain debilitating diseases.

The fund had been established to provide monetary help to the poor patients suffering from kidney diseases, cancer, hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis and heart ailments.

The announcement regarding the establishment of HEF was first made by the provincial government in 2003-04 and Rs50 million had been allocated as seed money followed by an equal allocation in the budget for 2004-05.

Sources said that the finance department had placed an amount of Rs50 million at the disposal of the provincial health department in May 2004. The health department had deposited the amount in one of its interest-free accounts in the Bank of Khyber a few months ago as the principle amount would remain in the bank while only its profit would be utilised.

For the treatment of the deserving patients through the use of this amount, the health department had also established a committee headed by provincial health minister with secretaries of health and finance departments and chief executives of the four teaching hospitals as its members.

Likewise, committees had also been formed to help patients from other districts. The health department officials had planned to make appeals for donations to philanthropists and to the chief minister to contribute from his discretionary fund.

There was also a proposal to sell state property, which was lying unused and the money was to be deposited into the endowment fund. But after one-and-a-half-year, the provincial health department could not come up with a practical plan to start the disbursement of funds among the needy patients, which has caused lot of unrest among the poor patients, the sources said.

An official of the provincial health department said that the department had received the initial money but the delay in disbursement was because of a lack of criteria for distributing the amount. He said that various proposals were under consideration and the disbursement of funds would be started soon.