PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has constituted an eight-member committee to oversee the affairs of its 19 hospitals handed over to private organisations under a public-private partnership initiative.

The committee is headed by the adviser to the chief minister on health and comprises the agriculture, local government and excise and taxation ministers and the inter-provincial coordination, law, finance and health secretaries as members, according to officials.

They told Dawn that the panel had been tasked with “looking after the performance of and other issues pertaining to the outsourced hospitals to ensure uninterrupted patient care.”

The officials said that the government through the Health Foundation had contracted out its 19 hospitals in 10 districts, including eight in 2020 for three years and 11 in 2022 for five years, due to “under-performance” but they had been hit by shortage of funds.

Officials say move to ensure smooth patient care

They said nine of those hospitals had received no government funding since last October.

The officials said a recent cabinet meeting, which was held with the caretaker chief minister in the chair, was informed that the suspension of funding had badly affected services in outsourced hospitals, while people of some areas staged street protests much to the chagrin of the administrations.

They added that the cabinet was informed about the blocking of a road against a halt to the dialysis service in Sholam Hospital of South Waziristan tribal district.

The officials said the government had withheld hospital funds and formed a committee to check their performance as well as funding utilisation.

They said the inquiry ordered by the chief secretary in Dec 2022 had found the performance of outsourced hospitals satisfactory except the Mir Ali Hospital in North Waziristan tribal district.

The officials said significant improvements in service delivery were recorded following the outsourcing of hospitals in remote areas.

They said the committee made certain recommendations, including a halt to the release of funds until the completion of the special audit of hospitals.

Meanwhile, officials said the health department had begun implementing the recommendations of the inquiry committee and completed performance review of outsourced hospitals.

They said the department wrote to the director-general (audit) for the special hospital audit.

The officials said the caretaker cabinet was told that the hospitals desperately required funds for the continuation of their services to benefit people in remote areas of the province.

They said funds had already been released to nine hospitals because in many areas, the employees hadn’t received salaries for more than six months and doctors and medical specialists were leaving the areas.

The officials, however, said action on the recommendations of the inquiry committee would ensure “accountability and transparency” in the affairs of outsourced hospitals.

They said the public sector hospitals were contracted out to private organisations to ensure the presence of staff on duty and smooth service delivery to visitors.

The officials said the hospitals with extremely poor performance were identified by the health department for outsourcing as doctors, nurses and other health professionals weren’t willing to be posted there.

They said 58 other hospitals in the province were ready to be contracted out but the funding issues of the already outsourced ones had thrown a spanner in the works.

The officials said the health department believed that the eight-member committee would help address the issues of outsourced hospitals to ensure healthcare doesn’t suffer.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2023