PESHAWAR: The health department has requested the finance department to release the outstanding amount of the hospitals operating under the public-private partnership initiative.

The provincial government has been contracting out health facilities to the private organisations under Public-Private Partnership Act, 2016, to improve services for the people. It has established Health Foundation (HF), which on recommendation of the department offers hospitals for outsourcing to private organisations having experience in operating the health facilities.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has outsourced 11 hospitals from time to time in newly-merged districts and Kohistan to improve patients’ care but these hospitals have been facing shortage of funds to pay to their employees, according to sources.

The finance department has agreed to pay half of the pending amount to three hospitals -- two in Waziristan and one in Mishti Mela area of Orakzai tribal district.

Finance dept has agreed to release half of the amount

These hospitals have not been paid their quarterly amount by the government from January to June. “The total outstanding amount is Rs422 million and finance department on the request of health department has agreed to release Rs211, half of the amount, and the remaining half will be released later,” sources said.

The district headquarters hospital in Dasu, Kohistan, was outsourced to a private organisation in April 2022 to start operations. The hospital, built in 2020, remained unutilised till April 2022 when its control was given to a non-governmental organisation. However, the hospital has not been paid funds by the government from April to June and it requires Rs58 million.

“Not only the government has to pay this amount in lieu of the outstanding money from January to June to the four hospitals but it also requires to pay Rs456 million for the last quarter of the previous year to facilitate the smooth operations of all the 11 outsourced hospitals.

The government has to pay a total of Rs938 million to the hospitals to avert any financial problems,” said sources.

Officials in health department told this scribe that the government had signed agreements with the private organisations to run the under-performing hospitals through deployment of specialist doctors, provision of equipment and other items. They said that the government, as per agreements, would continue to release funds to them as usual.

They said that they were in touch with finance department for early release of the pending amount to the hospitals so that their performance was not suffered and the patients got uninterrupted services. However, the finance department wanted details about audit, performance and work plan of those facilities prior to releasing the amount, they added.

“The amount is released by finance department to health department, which disperse it among the hospitals through respective district health officers. The Health Foundation is just like a post office between the private organisations and the government. It has nothing to do with the release of the money,” said officials.

They said that a proposal was being considered to revise cash flow mechanism and make things smoother.

“For this purpose, it has been recommended to revise the mechanism and allow Health Foundation to monitor the performance and audit of hospitals and other matters relating to private organisations to ensure timely release of the amount. This proposal has been sent to law department for the second time and hopefully will get approval,” they said.

Officials said that the proposal had already been sent to law department for vetting from where it was returned to health department with few observations.

Health Foundation is the right body to look into all matters because it is carrying out all the process of contracting out hospitals,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, january 3th, 2023