LAHORE: Following complaints of poor service delivery at the primary health facilities all over the province, the Punjab government has signed a deal with a new company to man over 1,000 basic health units (BHUs) of 14 districts, including 37 of Lahore.

Earlier, these BHUs were being run by a private firm, Punjab Rural Support Programme (PRSP), since October 2004.

Under an agreement with the Punjab government, the PRSP was getting government budget of all the 1,000 BHUs to ensure quality treatment to the poor. The PRSP had hired over 4,500 employees at these BHUs, who would now be rendered jobless, as there was no deal in the new agreement to re-engage their services for the upcoming company.

A UK-based organisation had recently exposed the poor state of health affairs at the 37 BHUs of Lahore, exposing the government’s tall claims of providing better health service delivery.

“As the PRSP failed to bring improvement in the service delivery to patients as per the deal, the government has intimated to them about the termination of the agreement,” Health Secretary Ali Jan Khan told Dawn.

Agreement with previous one cancelled over complaints of poor service

He said the term with this company would expire on June 30. The Punjab Health Facilities Management Company (PHFMC) has been registered and incorporated as a new not-for-profit company registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan under Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance, 1984.

Now, a draft has been finalised and signed by both the health department as well as the PHFMC to run the BHUs, he added.

“The PHFMC shall take over the management of 1,000 BHUs of 14 districts of Punjab, including 37 of Lahore, with effect from July 1 this year,” Mr Jan said.

He said this company shall perform all functions that were earlier performed by the PRSP. The secretary further said the Punjab government had decided to initiate disengagement process with the PRSP. “The arrangements for immediately initiating performance and financial audit of the PRSP project have also been initiated,” Mr Jan said, adding that under the next agreement the government is planning to hand over more primary healthcare facilities, including rural health centres (RHCs), to the new company.

The PHFMC is the government’s own company and under the new arrangement the budget specified for each facility would be directly transferred to it.

To a question about the future of 4,500 employees hired by the PRHP to run BHUs, he said it would be the discretion of the new company whether it wanted to re-engage them or hire new human resource. He also said that the Lahore District Health Authority deputy commissioner has already taken up the matter with the capital city police officer for the vacation of the Lakhokay BHU from local police.

“Moreover, the chief minister has recently decided to provide better diagnostic facilities, including ultrasound machines, to BHUs which will further improve primary health service delivery,” Mr Ali Jan said.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2017