PESHAWAR: The authorities have decided to outsource primary and secondary health facilities in the areas where the health indicators are not up to the mark.

A notification, issued by the health secretary on December 24, has asked the relevant officials to make recommendations in this regard.

A seven-member committee with director-general health services as its head has been constituted to make recommendations within the ambit of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act 2020 for outsourcing the health facilities, the operations of which are not up to desired level.

The notification has been issued after the approval of the provincial cabinet. The meeting of the provincial cabinet was held last month.

The committee also includes regional directors general health of four regions and chief of health sector reforms unit.

Body set up to give recommendations for the purpose

The panel has been tasked to recommend primary care facilities for outsourcing in line with PPP Act based on identified indicators and parameters which may include complete district or cluster of facilities.

According to terms of reference for the committee, the health secretary has asked it to send proposals for outsourcing the facilities based on the performance review across the specified indicators of selected category, A, B, C and D type of hospitals in the province.

Additionally, the committee has also been directed to furnish recommendations to contract the ancillary services to strengthen health delivery system.

Health Secretary Mohammad Tahir Orakzai told Dawn that the move was in line with PPP Act 2020 to run the health facilities in collaboration with the partner organisations.

The management of the outsourced facilities would remain with the health department, he added.

The government has already outsourced 10 health facilities in tribal districts where the situation regarding health delivery indicators has shown improvement.

“Nine more hospitals are ready to be contracted out within a month while two more would be advertised for the purpose soon. We are also in the process of outsourcing three regional blood centres to cater to the demand of blood required by patients in hospitals in different districts,” said the health secretary.

He said that the process would be completed under the relevant law through Health Foundation, which was supposed to ensure the operations of the health facilities through the PPP Act.

Mr Orakzai said that they wanted to make sure availability of medicines, equipment and human resources in the local hospitals for the benefit of the patients, who could be treated there. He added that the government was taking steps to improve patients’ care at grassroots level and lessen burden on the tertiary care facilities.

Last month, the department notified tehsil headquarters hospitals Topi and Chota Lahor as constituents of the medical teaching institution Bacha Khan Medical Complex Swabi that also showed improvement.

BMC Director Dr Khalid Masud told Dawn that the two facilities had been upgraded to tehsil headquarters hospitals some three years ago but their performance was not good.

“Last month, we received directives to take over both the facilities and so far we have started admission, surgeries and other procedures there,” he said.

He said that both the facilities faced power outages for hours and they installed electric generators to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

“Each facility has 110 beds and over 20 doctors,” he added.

Dr Khalid said that as per directives of the board of governors, they started deputing one physician and one surgeon to conduct OPD for one day every week and refer the patients to BMC for surgeries and other procedures.

BMC had 18 specialties and about 1,000 patients visited its OPD daily, he added.

Dr Khalid said that the referral of patients to Peshawar was reduced by 60 per cent as they treated the sick people locally and only those with complicated diseases were referred to Peshawar for tertiary care.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2021