PESHAWAR: The patients belonging to Federally Administered Tribal Areas have been visiting hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for diagnosis and treatment owing to lack of facilities back home.

“About 30 per cent of the patients seeking treatment in teaching hospitals in Peshawar belong to Fata because of weak healthcare system there. Legally, our facilities are meant exclusively for KP people but we cannot deny treatment according to medical ethics,” a senior physician told Dawn.

He said that the tribal patients were visiting outpatient departments and were also hospitalised as there was no distinction between the people of Fata and KP.

The physician said that the matter was never discussed at the hospitals because the tribal patients had been availing those facilities since long. He said that they were considered as legally authorised to get treatment there.

Official says centre doesn’t allocate special funds for providing services to Fata people

The situation in Khyber Teaching Hospital, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Lady Reading Hospital was the same where the tribal people get equal opportunities of treatment.

A senior administrator at one of the teaching hospitals said that they provided facilities to Fata people at par with that of KP patients despite the fact that they were not getting any special funds from the federal government, which ruled tribal areas directly through governor.

“The budget is allocated to health sector by provincial government and there is no allocation from Public Sector Development Programme from the centre,” he said.

A few months ago, the provincial health department sent a letter to Fata Secretariat, asking it to give Rs40 million for inclusion of tribal people in free cancer treatment at the oncology ward of Hayatabad Medical Complex but the request didn’t find receptive ears.

“Then, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak accorded special permission for inclusion of Fata people where doctors say 20 per cent patients belong to tribal areas. Not only cancer but tribal people fully utilise the facilities given to local people under the pro-poor initiatives by provincial government,” said the administrator.

Fata has 979 health facilities with 8,796 employees but 84 of the total sanctioned 108 posts are vacant there. The health facilities in Fata have 50 posts of women medical officers and 200 of lady health workers and nurses but half of them remain unfilled. As a result, people with minor ailments are transported to Peshawar or adjacent districts of the province for better healthcare facilities.

Health Secretary Abid Majeed told Dawn that they could not deny treatment to any resident of the country at the hospitals of the province. “We have planned to include Fata patients in Sehat Sahulat Programme under which the KP people are getting free treatment worth more than Rs540, 000 at both public and private hospitals,” he said.

However, Fata Secretariat didn’t respond, he said. “The tribal population is under-privileged and they should be given all facilities on humanitarian basis. There is no federal money for their treatment,” said Mr Majeed.

Recently, government outsourced about 10 health facilities to non-governmental organisations under a public private partnership programme to improve the healthcare scenario. Under the initiative, specialist doctors and other staff would get better salary packages to ensure that they work there.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2018