ISLAMABAD: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approached the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for financial assistance to support its reforms programme in the health sector, it is learnt on Saturday.

The ADB fielded a mission to the province recently, following which the KP government asked the bank to include a project in the 2018 pipeline of the ‘Country Operation and Business Plan’. The ADB board of executive directors has been requested to approve the programme by May 2018.

Given the urgency of the programme preparation and also expected similar request from other provinces, the ADB has decided to carry out the health sector assessment of all provinces.

Funds have been sought from the ADB to carry out an assessment that will examine delivery of health services, particularly hospital sector, focusing on quality of health care, public financial management of the health sector, and health seeking behaviour of the people.

The ADB is in the process of approving a small scale supplementary technical assistance, amounting to $225,000 to carry out an assessment that will examine delivery of health services, particularly hospital sector, focusing on quality of health care, public financial management of the health sector, and health seeking behaviour of the population.

With all the ongoing initiatives, there is need for a consistent policy framework to coordinate and align all reform initiatives and prevent system fragmentation by reforms implemented in silos. The sector assessment will inform the new health strategy for the province and will distil the policy matrix for an upcoming policy-based loan.

The ADB has received the request for assistance in strengthening health systems, especially secondary hospitals, and critical part of tertiary hospitals, and introduction of public private partnerships in hospitals, from health departments of Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh.

A recent report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that KP is maintaining a very comprehensive health system, province-wise. However, the issue of integration, poor management, lack of competency, insufficient accountability system and lack of innovation as per genius and social construct of the society have beleaguered the provincial heath system.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2017