PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Foundation established by the government in 2016 to develop, promote and facilitate public-private partnership in the health sector has shortlisted 24 private organisations for managing 58 hospitals, health units and other health facilities in the province under public-private partnership umbrella.

Officials in the health department told Dawn that the Health Foundation (HF) had invited tenders for the infinitive in August and 54 organisations formally responded to it to claim contracts to manage health facilities after approval by the provincial government.

They said the HF was in the process of outsourcing secondary care facilities in all districts of the province after a study conducted earlier in the year showed that the 19 health centres had shown better performance after being contracted out in the last five years.

The officials said a committee under director-general health services had recommended the outsourcing of those hospitals and health units after the data provided by the district health information system and Independent Monitoring Unit (IMU) revealed that the performance of those facilities wasn’t up to the mark, so it was difficult to meet the universal health coverage targets.

Health Foundation shortlists 24 private organisations to execute govt plans

They said hospitals, basic health units and other small health centres would be outsourced in line with the recommendation of the committee, which was headed by the director-general (health services).

The officials said 25 private organisations properly responded to the tenders, 16 failed to provide the required documents and 13 secured less than 50 marks during the bidding process.

They said the ‘grievances committee’ would address complaints of the organisations after which the successful bidders would be invited to produce their technical and financial proposals.

The officials said around seven organisations had submitted applications for being left out of the process claiming they fulfilled criteria.

They said the organisations had been asked to apply for clusters of health facilities to be able to effectively manage services.

The officials said the organisations had opted for joint ventures to fill up the prescribed criteria for winning the completion held in light of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Procurement Authority Rule and HF’s PPP Rules, 2017.

They said the organisations’ score in the previous experience hospital management, financial and clinical capacity backed by documents, including national tax number, registration with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority and HR capability.

The officials said the organisations, which had run hospitals since 2017, had an edge over the new applicants as a survey had indicated their better performance since they took over the hospitals in Orakzai, Waziristan and other districts.

They, however, said the shortlisted candidates included leading hospitals, which could be offered ‘clusters of health facilities’ depending on their human resources.

The officials said every cluster could get six to seven hospitals in the same region.

They said under the current health system, patients suffered in hospitals due to out-of-order machines, staff absenteeism, delay in medicine procurement and supplies, and administrative issues.

The officials said under the initiative, private organisations were required to ensure maintenance of equipment for uninterrupted investigations, attendance of staff, and availability of medicines.

They added that the outsourced facilities would remain under the control of the health department and the private parties would be entrusted with administrative responsibilities only.

The officials said partner organisations would work under the respective district health officers, who would head hospital review committees comprising medical superintendent, additional deputy commissioner, project director of private firm, a representative of district account office and district specialist as members.

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2022